Classifying Land by its Use
Scott M. Eddie · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2008
This chapter shows a clear East-West gradient in a land yield index by province, based on Kreis data from the land tax cadastre (Grundsteuerveranlagung) of the early 1860s. The province of Saxony stands out as having the highest quality land in general, whereas East Prussia had generally the lowest. Cluster analysis is used to classify large properties by their land-use profiles. The general structure of the clusters proved remarkably stable over time. The chapter further examines the clusters by total area and total tax value contained within each cluster. Bourgeois land owners tended to concentrate their holdings in arable agriculture, the nobility in properties with mixed land use, and the Prussian state in forestry. Other land owners as a group had about half the tax value of their holdings in properties specialized on arable agriculture, with the rest spread out over all different combinations of land use.