With regard to great individual or corporate land holdings, there exist no adequate statistics. A few conspicuous instances may be cited. The United States Steel Corporation owns lands yielding iron ore, coal, coke, and timber which are valued by the Commissioner of Corporations at nearly 250 million dollars, and by the Steel Corporation itself at more than 800 million dollars.[80] Three companies own nearly eleven per cent., and 195 individuals or corporations own 48 per cent. of all the privately owned timber in the United States.[81] The United States Census of 1910 shows that the number of farms containing 500 acres or over was about 175,000, and comprised ten per cent. of the total farm acreage. One hundred and fifty persons and corporations are said to own 220,000,000 acres of various kinds of land. None of these holders has less than ten thousand acres, and two of the syndicates possess fifty million acres each.[82] _Exclusion from the Land_ One of the most frequent charges brought against the present system of land tenure is that it keeps a large proportion of our natural resources out of use. It is contended that this evil appears in three principal forms: owners of large estates refuse to break up their holdings by sale; many proprietors are unwilling to let the use of their land on reasonable terms; and a great deal of land is held at speculative prices, instead of at economic prices. So far as the United States are concerned, the first of these charges does not seem to represent a condition that is at all general. Although many holders of large mineral and timber tracts seem to be in no hurry to sell portions of their holdings, they are probably moved by a desire to obtain higher prices rather than to continue as large landowners. As a rule, the great landholders of America are without those sentiments of tradition, local attachment, and social ascendency which are so powerful in maintaining intact the immense estates of Great Britain. On the contrary, one of the common facts of to-day is the persistent effort carried on by railroads and other holders of large tracts to dispose of their land to settlers. While the price asked by these proprietors is frequently higher than that which corresponds to the present productiveness of the land, it is generally as low as that which is demanded by the owners of smaller parcels. To be sure, this is one way of unreasonably hindering access to the land, but it falls properly under the head of the third charge enumerated above. There is no sufficient evidence that the _large_ landholders are exceptional offenders in refusing to sell their holdings to actual settlers.