"This is no place to enter upon a discussion of the nature and classification of different kinds of value, but a word of caution may be allowed in order to guard against an unwarranted use of the figures here submitted. The commercial valuation of railway property, in so far as it depends on income arising from the sale of transportation, is the result, among other things, of an established schedule of freight and passenger rates, from which it follows that such a valuation cannot be used for determining the reasonableness or unreasonableness of the rates in question. The solution of the rate problem demands a separate valuation of the physical property. "Again, in so far as the Government is precluded by its political character from following commercial rules in the sale of any service which it renders, a commercial valuation which assumes that property is administered under the rules of private rather than public financiering, might differ from the valuation of the same property regarded as a public property. The purpose of this remark is to preclude a discussion of the problem of the Government purchase of railways on the basis of the values submitted in this report. It would of course be necessary to modify these values by considerations of public utility, in order to determine a public purchase price. "Whether or not the commercial valuation here submitted can be used as the basis of assessing railway properties for the purpose of taxation depends entirely upon the taxing laws of the state for which the question is asked. If these laws confine the appraisal of railway property to its physical elements, the values here submitted would, in the case of prosperous roads, exceed an appraisal for the purpose of taxation. If, on the other hand, it is the purpose of the taxing law to appraise railway property at its true cash value, unusual or abnormal conditions being excluded, it may be that the commercial valuation of operating property submitted in this report fairly measures its appraisal for the purpose of taxation." The methods are explained in the most minute detail by a series of papers in the Bulletin. The work of Professor Adams and his associates is of great practical value in that it shows the discrepancy in the taxation laws of the different States as relating to railroad properties, and in that it gives a set of values determined by a uniform method, which, within reasonable limits, furnishes a check on the work of the State appraisals. This method, of course, cannot be used for purposes of rate-making, or of bond or stock restrictive legislation, but the general uniformity of its results with those of State appraisals, and the radical differences noted in the case of values for taxation in other States, lead very properly to the inference that a value determined by this method is very close to the truth. THE EXTENT OF APPRAISAL PRACTICE.