Quip Origin: Buy Land; They’re Not Making It Anymore

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Mark Twain? Will Rogers? Fred Dumont Smith? Arthur M. Pearson? Apocryphal? Anonymous?

Earth viewed by the crew of the Apollo 17 space mission

Question for Quote Investigator: The quantity of real estate is limited by the surface area of our planet. A popular wag commented about this restricted supply. Here are three versions:

(1) Buy land. They’re not making it anymore.
(2) Buy land. God is not making any more of it.
(3) Buy land. The good Lord stopped making it.

This notion has been credited to two famous U.S. humorists: Mark Twain and Will Rogers. Yet, I have never seen a solid citation, and I have become skeptical. Would you please explore this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI and other researchers have not found any substantive evidence that Mark Twain employed this quip. The earliest match found by QI appeared in the “McCracken Enterprise” of McCracken, Kansas in October 1905. The saying was spoken by an anonymous “old gentlemen”, and the newspaper acknowledged a nearby periodical called the “Kinsley Mercury”. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1

An old gentleman the other day in advising a friend to buy land, said, God almighty isn’t making any more land, but he’s makin babies every mornin’.

Interestingly, Will Rogers did compose a thematically related statement about “Ocean Frontage” for his syndicated newspaper column in 1930, but the remark by Rogers was not a close match to the concise quip, and the joke was already in circulation. Details are presented further below.

This saying is difficult to trace because it can be expressed in many ways. Here is an overview depicting the evolution of the statement together with dates and ascriptions.

1905 Oct 13: Buy land … God almighty isn’t making any more land (Attributed to an old gentleman)

1905 Oct 20: Buy more land … God almighty isn’t makin’ any more land (Attributed to an old Irishman)

1916 Oct 07: Buy more land. God is not in the real estate business any more now and He is not going to make any more land (Reverend C. L. Davis)

1922 Apr 16: “God Almighty long ago stopped making Shore Lots” … Buy now, while you can (Attributed to a reverend gentleman)

1930 Apr 13: I had been putting what little money I had in Ocean Frontage, for the sole reason that there was only so much of it and no more, and that they wasent making any more (Will Rogers)

1936 Nov 12: I asked him why he continued to buy land? … “The Lord made the world and stopped making land” (Attributed to a friend)

1954 Feb 21: “Buy Land” — they ain’t making any more of that stuff (Attributed to Will Rogers)

1961 Mar 30: Buy land—they’re not making it any more (Anonymous)

1965 Aug 21: Buy land while you can — they’ve stopped making it (Anonymous)

1971 May 24: Buy land, they’ve stopped making it (Attributed to Mark Twain)

1971 Sep 19: Buy land as they’re not making any more (Attributed to Mark Twain)

1973 Mar 17: Buy land. They’ve stopped making it. (Attributed to Arthur M. Pearson)

1997 Oct 06: Buy land … “God ain’t gonna invent any more.” (Attributed to Mark Twain)

2000: Buy land! They ain’t making any more of it. (Attributed to Will Rogers)

2017: Buy land. They’re not making it anymore (Attributed to Mark Twain)

Below are details for selected citations in chronological order.

On October 13, 1905 the joke appeared in “McCracken Enterprise” with credit to an unidentified “old gentlemen” as mentioned previously. Shortly afterward the same passage appeared in other Kansas papers such as the “La Crosse Chieftain”.2

On October 20, 1905 the quip appeared in “The Rush Center Breeze” of Rush Center, Kansas with credit to an unnamed “old Irishman”. The word “morning” was spelled as “marnin’”:3

An old Irishman illustrated the land propositions the other day on a Santa Fe train in advising his boys to buy more land. He said: “God almighty isn’t makin’ any more land but he’s makin’ babies every marnin’” There you have it in a nut shell.

On October 24, 1905 “The Kansas Semi-Weekly Capital” of Topeka, Kansas named the person who heard the tale:4

Fred Dumont Smith tells a story he says he heard on a Santa Fe train the other day. It illustrates the land proposition in Kansas to a nicety. An old Irishman was advising his boys to buy more land “God Almighty isn’t making any more land”, he said, “but he’s makin’ babies every mornin’.” And there you have it in a nutshell. There is only one crop of land, but there is a crop of babies every year. Land they must have and the supply is limited.

In 1916 “The Tattler” of Muskogee, Oklahoma printed a message from Reverend C. L. Davis:5

You who have no home buy yourself ten or 40 acres of farm land. If this is not enough, after you have paid for the rst, buy more land. God is not in the real estate business any more now and He is not going to make any more land, but nature is still increasing the world’s population and this means that land will still increase in a greater demand, with an increased valuation.

In 1922 “The Boston Globe” of Massachusetts printed an advertisement from Suburban Land Company which included an instance of the saying:6

Recently a reverend gentleman said: “God Almighty long ago stopped making Shore Lots.” He was right. Buy now, while you can.

In 1929 Will Rogers warned about the dangers of real estate investing in his syndicated newspaper column:7

There is nothing that can break a man quicker than land, unless its running a Grocery Store or dealing in second-hand cars.

In 1930 Will Rogers wrote about purchasing land in his syndicated column. The word “wasn’t” was misspelled as “wasent”:8

… I had been putting what little money I had in Ocean Frontage, for the sole reason that there was only so much of it and no more, and that they wasent making any more, then when I hear Nation after Nation arise and announce the amount of coast line they had, it sure was discouraging to me.

In 1936 a columnist in Dixon’s Mills, Alabama attributed the viewpoint to his friend:9

I had a friend back years ago who bought a lot of land, and when I thought he was about land poor, he continued to buy more land. I asked him why he continued to buy land? and his answer was, “The Lord made the world and stopped making land, but he continues to make people.” Land at that time was selling for almost nothing, and with a very little capital one could buy a lot of land.

In 1954 an advertisement for K. M. Jones Real Estate printed in “The Miami Herald” of Florida credited Will Rogers with a concise version of the saying:10

THE LATE BELOVED Will Rogers Said: “Buy Land” — they ain’t making any more of that stuff.

In 1961 a newspaper in Bismarck, North Dakota printed the saying without attribution:11

PARTING SHOT
Buy land—they’re not making it any more.

In 1965 an instance without attribution appeared in a real estate advertisement in “The Edmonton Journal” of Alberta, Canada:12

FARMS AND RANCHES
From 4 to 4,000 acres in the finest agricultural area in B.C. Buy land while you can — they’ve stopped making it.

In May 1971 a columnist in the “Evening Standard” of London, England ascribed an instance to Mark Twain:13

Mark Twain said, “Buy land, they’ve stopped making it.”

In September 1971 a real estate advertisement in a Hammond, Indiana newspaper credited Twain with an instance:14

Mark Twain, “Buy land as they’re not making any more.”

In 1974 “Colombo’s Canadian Quotations” contained the following entry from 1973:15

Arthur M. Pearson
Buy land. They’ve stopped making it.
Saskatchewan senator, chairman of the Special Senate Committee on Land Use, to Senator David Croll. Quoted by George Bain in The Globe and Mail, March 17, 1973.

In 1997 a columnist in “The Guardian” of London, England ascribed an instance to Twain:16

She may be a brilliant economist, but DeAnne Julius is not a reader of Mark Twain, who advised people to buy land as “God ain’t gonna invent any more.”

The linkage to Will Rogers has not been forgotten. In 2000 “Random House Webster’s Wit & Humor Quotationary” contained this entry:17

WILL ROGERS (1879-1935). American actor, journalist, and humorist
Buy land! They ain’t making any more of it.

In 2017 “Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways To Think Like a 21st Century Economist” by Kate Raworth contained the following passage:18

The trouble is, as populations and economies grow, the price of land rises, but no more of it can be supplied and so that shortage generates ever-higher rents for landowners. Mark Twain had his eye on this trend in nineteenth-century America: ‘Buy land,’ he quipped. ‘They’re not making it anymore.’

In conclusion, the quip appeared by 1905, and the creator was anonymous. There is no substantive evidence that Mark Twain who died in 1910 employed the quip. Twain received credit by 1971. Will Rogers wrote a thematically related passage in 1930 after the joke was already circulating. Rogers died in 1935 and received credit for the concise quip by 1954.

Image Notes: Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew. Image obtained from the official website nasa.gov. The image has been resized.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to researcher Ralph Keyes who explored this topic in “The Quote Verifier” and indicated that the attributions to Mark Twain and Will Rogers were unsupported. Also, thanks to researcher Barry Popik who examined this topic and found partial matches beginning in 1909.

  1. 1905 October 13, McCracken Enterprise, Kinsley Mercury, Quote Page 1, Column 5, McCracken, Kansas. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  2. 1905 October 20, La Crosse Chieftain, Untitled articled (Acknowledgement to Kinsley Mercury) Quote Page 5, Column 2, La Crosse, Kansas. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  3. 1905 October 20, The Rush Center Breeze, Untitled article, Quote Page 4, Column 3,  Rush Center, Kansas. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  4. 1905 October 24, The Kansas Semi-Weekly Capital, Kansas Men and Matters, Quote Page 4, Column 6, Topeka, Kansas. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  5. 1916 October 7, The Tattler, Webster News: Untitled item by Rev. C. L. Davis, Quote Page 1, Column 4, Muskogee, Oklahoma. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  6. 1922 April 16, The Boston Globe, A New City By the Sea In the Making: Hatherly Beach, Scituate, Mass., Advertisement for Suburban Land Company Inc. of Boston, Quote Page 34, Column 4, Boston, Massachusetts. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  7. 1929 September 21, The Sacramento Bee, Section: Amusement, Who Wants A Few Public Lands? by Will Rogers, Quote Page A8, Column 8, Sacramento, California. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  8. 1930 April 13, The San Bernardino Daily Sun, And So Wags This Old World by Will Rogers, Quote Page 20, Column 5, San Bernardino, California. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  9. 1936 November 12, The Democrat-Reporter, Old Times by Joel D. Jones of Dixon’s Mills, Alabama, Quote Page 1, Column 1, Linden, Alabama. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  10. 1954 February 21, The Miami Herald, Section: Classified Ads, Advertisement for K. M. Jones Real Estate, Quote Page 9G, Column 8, Miami, Florida. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  11. 1961 March 30, The Bismarck Tribune, Browsing Around with Jack E. Case, Quote Page 1, Column 1, Bismarck, North Dakota. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  12. 1965 August 21, The Edmonton Journal, Section: Classified Advertisements, Advertisement for Wrightway Insurance & Realty Ltd., Quote Page 42, Column 6, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  13. 1971 May 24, Evening Standard, M & S warns thrifty London housewives by Jack Prosser (City Editor), Quote Page 39, Column 4, London, England. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  14. 1971 September 19, The Times, Advertisement for Washburn Realtors, Quote Page 5E, Column 8, Hammond, Indiana. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  15. 1974, Colombo’s Canadian Quotations, Edited by John Robert Colombo, Entry: Arthur M. Pearson, Quote Page 467 and 468, Hurtig Publishers, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  16. 1997 October 6, The Guardian, What they call our heavyweight economy is really immaterial by Denis MacShane, Quote Page 17, Column 7, London, England. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  17. 2000, Random House Webster’s Wit & Humor Quotationary, Edited by Leonard Roy Frank, Person: Will Rogers, Quote Page 214, Random House, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  18. 2017, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways To Think Like a 21st Century Economist by Kate Raworth, Chapter 5: Design To Distribute, Quote Page 152, Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, Vermont. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
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