Recent patterns of rural land use in Georgia have stressed urban aggrandizement and the transformation of a significant portion of the available rural land into forests. The area covered by commercial forests in Georgia has increased 21 percent over the past quarter century to the point where two out of every three acres in Georgia are presently growing tree crops. During the 1958-68 decade the proportion of land in farms in Georgia fell from 31.3 percent to 27.0 percent, representing a withdrawal of approximately 1.6 million acres from farm use. As a partial consequence of this shift in rural land use patterns, the price of farm land over the past ten years has increased more rapidly in Georgia than in any other state but one.

Of all markets, the land market has been thought to be one of the most difficult to explain. Techniques for predicting land prices leave much to be desired. Nevertheless, the importance of this market continues to grow as fixed costs of commercial farm firms escalate, due to farm expansion and other factors.

Conventional techniques for building models to explain farm land prices have not been as useful as when similar statistical procedures have been used elsewhere. Data problems have been conspicuous. The heterogeneity of many populations has created difficulties. Clearly, additional refinement of models is needed.