In the illustration given above we have supposed all of the land to be of equally favorable location. If, however, it should happen to be the case that the land of the first quality was so poorly located with reference to the settlement that it cost the equivalent of three bushels an acre to get the crop to market, whereas the cost of getting the produce of the land of second and third qualities was practically nothing, this cost of bringing the produce of the first quality land to market would have to be deducted from its produce before estimating the rent. In this case, when the second quality land was no-rent land, the first quality land would command a rent, not of five bushels, but of five bushels less the three bushels which it cost to transport the produce, or two bushels. The rent of agricultural land, therefore, depends upon its location as well as upon its fertility. In the case of city lands, fertility counts for little or nothing, while location is almost entirely responsible in estimating the land's productivity.

184. Where No-Rent Land Is Absent

It often happens that there is no actual no-rent land competing with the land whose rent it is desired to estimate. For instance, in the case of land used for building purposes in a city, the poorest land from the point of view of location is not no-rent land. It is more probably land for which an appreciable rent could be obtained for its use for garden purposes. In this case, to arrive at the rental of a given area we should need to measure the difference in productivity of the land whose rent we were estimating and the productivity of this poorest land for the purpose, and to add to this difference the rental of this poorest land for garden purposes.