Chapter 368: Land Law

Since California's Central Valley has been under planned development since its development, the farmland, orchards and farms in California's Central Valley are arranged very regularly and look very comfortable.

California, and even the entire eastern and western United States, is vast and sparsely populated.

As far as the cultivated land that has been developed in California is concerned, it accounts for less than 5% of the arable area in the country.

According to California’s Agricultural Land Ordinance of 1851.

For each immigrant who chooses to engage in agricultural production, the California government will allocate 20 acres (40 acres) to 80 acres (51 acres) of agricultural land for free.

The exact allocation depends on the fertility of the land and the remoteness of the location.

If it is land in the suburbs of San Francisco or the suburbs of Stockton, each person can only be allocated a maximum of 20 acres.

If it is a wasteland under development, it will be distributed at a rate of 80 acres per person according to the highest standards.

However, with the increase in agricultural development in California, there is very little idle land in the suburbs of medium and large cities. New immigrants are more likely to get 80 acres of uncultivated agricultural land.

The per capita cultivated land area is high, which is the advantage of fewer people and more land.

In fact, the land grant area under California's Agricultural Land Act is already a very low standard in the United States.

The federal government's "Land Order" of 1785 and the "Northwest Order" of 1787 stipulated that the minimum land area for sale was 640 acres, and there was no upper limit on the maximum area.

Even the minimum land area standard for sale in the Degree Act of 1854 and the Homestead Act of 1862 is still 40 acres, which is higher than the minimum 20 acres standard of California's Land Code.

In other words, according to American law, if you want to annex land indefinitely, it is theoretically feasible.

But theory is theory and practice is reality. In fact, the feasibility of unlimited land annexation in the United States is very low.

In addition to progressive payment of local taxes based on the size of the land occupied, if the land exceeding the legal limit cannot be sold within 30 years, the land held will be sold at the lowest price, which is 5 cents per acre.

It can be seen from the laws issued by the U.S. federal government over the years that the U.S. federal government encourages the reclamation of wasteland to increase land value and encourages the circulation of land assets, but it does not encourage land annexation.

To become rich by holding a large amount of land, unless you can buy high-quality land in major cities like the Astor family and wait for the price of these lands to skyrocket within 30 years, it will still be difficult to become a top rich man simply relying on land.

Although California's land grant standards are already very low, many immigrants, especially Chinese immigrants, are very satisfied with the existing land grant standards.

In the Qing Dynasty, not to mention the 20 acres of land donated to each person, even if one household owned 20 acres of land, they were considered small landowners in the village.

The standards for land grants in California were the standards for a medium landowner in the Qing Dynasty.

Since the amount of land donated is enough, it is already very difficult for one person to manage 20 acres of land. Therefore, there are few farmers who want to make themselves uncomfortable and annex other people's land.

Of course, California law also limits land annexation.

Currently, California, like many states in the Midwest, does not levy property taxes on land.

But this is conditional. If the land is held below 80 acres, no tax will be charged. If the land exceeds 80 acres, land tax will be levied on a progressive basis for the portion exceeding the standard, and the government's agricultural subsidy policy will not apply.

Therefore, many California farmers are stuck with the standard 80 acres of land at most, and rarely choose to hold more than 80 acres.

As for those farms with more than a thousand acres of land, they are not privately owned, but are collective farms formed voluntarily by many farmers in order to reduce the risks of planting and management. Some farmers choose to join a farm to raise funds to purchase expensive agricultural machinery and livestock for joint use to reduce planting costs.

In fact, the land allocated to each person in the farm does not exceed California's land holding standards.

Liang Yao stepped off the train and saw a group of naughty kids riding ponies and leading dogs, shouting vulgar words such as Fake, Buda, my mother, Selinmu, and Ninai. Fighting around the station.

These naughty children should be the children of nearby farmers.

Passing through the group of brawling children, Liang Yao saw a steam tractor parked in a wheat field not far away.

The appearance of the steam engine is very rough and has a primitive beauty.

It gave Liang Yao the impression that he had made some modifications to the miniaturized Pioneer locomotive and moved it directly to the farmland.

Many farmers have already gathered around this neat tractor, watching it curiously.

Liang Yao couldn't help but get closer and take a closer look at the tractor. The cab did not exist at all. There was an open platform at the rear of Tolage for the driver to stand and control the steering wheel.

As for sitting down and driving, it is impossible. The front of the locomotive blocks the view. If you sit down and drive, there is no view ahead at all.

According to the introductions of Walter, Pratt, Whitney and others, gears, reversing, and precise control of speed are simply fantasy.

Once the tractor is started, it can only travel at its own speed. The only things the driver can intervene are the direction of travel of the steam tractor and the brakes.

Early steam engines were basically competing with livestock. For example, early steam trains competed with horses in speed.

The same is true for today's steam tractors. The opponents of this neat tractor are a horse pulling a cutter and a cow pulling a cutter.

They will compete in the fields to see who can harvest wheat more efficiently.

Although American agriculture in the mid-19th century was not yet mechanized, American farmers had a wide range of agricultural machinery to choose from.

For example, sawmills and threshing machines produced by Nichols and Shepard, and cutters produced by William Brown Blacksmith's Upton Manufacturing Company, are all very popular agricultural machinery in America.

The Qing Dynasty at the same time did not have such soil, because there was no problem in the Qing Dynasty that could not be solved by manpower. If there was, there would be more manpower.

America lacked manpower. In order to improve production efficiency, in addition to using expensive black slaves, it could only find ways to improve production efficiency, which directly gave rise to many craftsmen who were good at making money.

The Nichols and Shepard Company and William Brown Blacksmith's Upton Manufacturing Company mentioned above are both well-known agricultural machinery manufacturers in the early days of the United States.

They are also the earliest craftsmen in the United States to make a fortune by producing agricultural machinery.

If Liang Yao had not emerged, these two companies would have been the earliest steam tractor manufacturers in the United States.

The cattle and horses and steam tractors participating in this competition are towing the cutters made by Upton Manufacturing Company, which are very popular among wheat farmers in California.

Harvesting wheat with livestock dragging the cutters saves time and effort, and is much more efficient than manual harvesting.

This harvesting method is also the main harvesting method for wheat farmers in California.