This book examines the foundations of the system for owning and taxing agricultural land in the United States. It considers the conditions of land policy at several levels of government and questions some of the historical views of progress.

Foreword -- Preface -- Description -- Agricultural Landownership and the Real Property Tax -- Leasing Farmland -- Taxing Farmland -- Collecting and Interpreting Farmland Data: The AELOS Program -- Explanation -- Concepts of Property and Taxation -- Economic Interpretation of Property in Land -- Share Leasing and Externalities -- The Sources of Value in Agricultural Land -- Market Price of Land as a Measure of Welfare -- Rising Inequality and Falling Property Tax Rates -- Use-Value Assessment of Farmland -- Options -- Making Land-Settlement Policy in a Federalist System -- Not All Dreams Come True: Progressivism and the New Political Economy -- Public and Private Interests in Land in the United Kingdom -- Britain, America, and the Rural Land-Use Bargain -- Land Information -- Land Information: Taxing as a Data Source -- The Survey of Taxable Property Values -- Integrating Land-Related Program, Survey, and Inventory Data -- Land Information Needs and Sources: A Comment -- The Literature of Land Ownership and Taxation -- Appendix