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Farm Mortgages.-Per Cent of Farms Mortgaged, Arranged in Order of Per Cent Mortgaged, Showing Changes, if Any, in Twenty Years

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Farm Tenancy.-Per Cent of Farms Operated by Tenants, Arranged in Order of Per Cents, Showing Changes, if Any, in Thirty Years

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APPENDIX

Farm Tenancy in Canada.—Per cent of Total Occupiers Who are Tenants

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Shifting of Farmers, or Term Farmer Spends on One Farm. Term of Occupancy of Farm (Owners and Renters)

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Conference of the Agricultural Commission of the American Bankers Association, Washington, February 26–27, 1919

Declaration on "Farm Tenancy."-"Farm tenancy is a constantly increasing menace to a permanent, prosperous, and safe agriculture, and a contented country life. It has resulted in a loss of the priceless fertility of the soil-the creation of an unsettled farm population-illiteracy-an inefficient country school system-a drift from farm to city-and unprofitable methods of agriculture.

"Means must be found by which the industrious young farmer of character and skill in agriculture, even though of limited financial resources, can look forward to becoming a farm owner.

"This conference recommends that committees on agriculture of the bankers' State associations give serious attention to methods of correcting this dangerous condition.

"To the committees is suggested the advisability of selecting a banker leader in each county to bring together farm owners and tenants to devise means for the purchase of farms, utilizing governmental and private agencies. "The committees should also inspire better systems of leasing that will provide protection for the fertility of the soil, longer tenures, and provisions for the maintenance of livestock.”—Banker Farmer, April, 1919, p. 2.

Relation of Tenancy to Land Value. Dear Land Means More Tenants. Examples of Largest and Smallest Amount of Tenancy, by Rural Counties, in Certain States; Also Average Land Values in Same Counties. 1910 Census.

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1 Kewaunee County, Wisconsin, furnishes an interesting exception to the rule. Here German and Bohemian farmers, owning small farms of high-priced land, are in the majority.

CHAPTER VI

ECONOMIC CONDITION OF THE FARMER

Introductory. Whatever schemes may be tried to induce people to go back to the land, the outstanding fact is and must ever be that when the farm pays people will flock to the farm without other inducements. The industries of the city offer greater economic inducements than the farm does, either in the size of income or in the certainty or continuity of income.

Does Farming Pay? It is difficult to measure all the returns of farming. These returns include among other things such nonmeasurable things as independence, since the farmer has no employer to please; joy in labor, since the farmer labors for himself; peace of mind, since panics in the business world will have no influence on the farm's fertility. But the tangible return, the one which can be measured, is the economic income. This economic income goes far to determine the farmer's social status in his community, the amount of leisure at his disposal, and to a large degree his importance and opportunity in a political way. It is the basic underlying factor in the farmer's life. Therefore the importance of this question, "Does Farming Pay?"

Income of $408 a Year.-A great many attempts have been made to estimate the farmer's income; many investigations and "surveys" have been made. The Federal government carried on a careful investigation in the heart of our great farming section, for instance. The following quotation from this investigation illustrates very adequately all phases of this very complex question:

"The economic condition of the farming population is a matter of great concern to everybody. According to the last census (1910), thirty-two per cent of our population actually live on the farms, and the efficiency and prosperity of these directly affect the condition of all the rest. Farming has never been regarded as a very remunerative business, and there have been obvious reasons throughout most of our history why the direct and immediate returns could not be large. With fertile prairie land practically free, it was not to be expected that the common crops would bring much more than the labor cost of producing them by the ordinary methods, for while there is a great opportunity in agriculture for the use of intelligence and scientific skill, it is also true that routine farming can be learned and carried on by anyone. During the period when good lands could be had by homestead entry, the opportunity to obtain a farm free was in itself a great inducement to the settlement of vacant lands, and a factor in making low prices on farm products.

"With the passing of the period of free lands, and as population gained upon farm area, the prices of farm products began to advance. A pronounced

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