When you start farm-hunting take along a good map. Then you will
know a few things on your own account. Verify railroad maps and
"facts," as they are often biased. Don't waste your time wandering
around a strange locality by yourself. The local real estate man
knows more about his community than you can learn in five years. In
trying to find out things for yourself you will waste in aimless
journeys, undertaken in ignorance of real conditions, more time and
money than a real estate man's commission amounts to.

The only way to form a correct idea of the production of any given
section is to examine a particular farm in detail. Within
well-recognized limits, all tile farms thereabouts will be found of
similar character. Before spending money to look at land, learn all
you can by correspondence. Whether it is more profitable in the long
run to buy that good plot of land in a high state of cultivation
with good buildings on it, at a high price, than to buy this
exhausted piece of land with poor buildings or none at all, is a
question for the individual to decide. It depends on your energy,
grit, age, and how much money you have. It is much easier to take
advantage of what the other fellow has done, than it is to build
from the stump. You must bear in mind, however, that well kept land
in a high state of cultivation seldom goes begging in the market. On
the whole, if you have the capital to do it, you can make the
biggest wages by buying rough or neglected land, and hewing it into
shape.

If you have a knowledge of soils, you may be able to find land that
will grow something that no one supposes it will grow. This will be
particularly useful in the case of land thought to be valueless. The