1230 New York State Agricultural Society 



payment on $100, including interest at 4.3 per cent, as adopted 



by the Credit Foncier of France, is for a 



10 year term $12.40 



20 year term 7.50 



40 year term 5.25 



60 year term 4.66 



75 year term 4.48 



It will be observed that for the sixty-year period the annual 

 payment is about one-third of 1 per cent. ; while for the seventy- 

 five year period it is less than one-fifth of 1 per cent. In Ireland 

 the government loans for the full purchase price of the farm is 

 amortized in sixty-eight years at 31/4 per cent. — one-fourth of 

 1 per cent, for amortization. 



The Landschaften or partnership of borrowers pledging un- 

 limited responsibility, is the purest form of cooperative credit. 

 It is most economical in operation, and failures among them are 

 practically unknown. 



The land banks organized under corporate franchises may elect 

 to adopt a charter with unlimited responsibility to members, or 

 it may limit the responsibility to each member by the shares held 

 by him, or to three or more times the value of stock holdings. 

 Where cooperative credit is first adopted there is usually strong 

 objection to unlimited responsibility, but as experience ripens the 

 tendency is to resort more and more to unlimited responsibility. 

 To my mind the difference is not important one way or the other. 

 We already bond our school districts, our cities and villages, our 

 townships, counties and states. In all these cases our individual 

 responsibility is unlimited. On the other hand our building 

 and loan associations furnish examples of a most efficient system 

 of limited responsibility in cooperative marketing of real estate 

 mortgages. The form is not so important, provided the respon- 

 sibility, whether personal or corporate, is sufficient to cover the 

 obligation beyond question. 



The principles under which these land banks operate are 

 familiar enough to us. We have many corporations, good and 

 bad, operating under them in real estate speculations in our large 

 cities. Wo have one such corporation in Xew York with a basic 

 capital of only $100,000, which may or may not be largely water, 



