•IV 



2 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Sept., 



visited a great many farms- and looked at a great many pigs. 

 One striking thing about tlie pork industry in Denmark is 

 that even the pigs are standardized. They are bred ahke, fed 

 aHke, and slaughtered at about the same age and size. The 

 bacon is cured under a standard process so that one hundred 

 Aveisfht of Danish bacon is almost identical with anv other 

 hundred weight. The English buyers can therefore buy 

 Danish bacon on grade and reputation without inspection. 



It is interesting to notice how the principle of standardi- 

 zation has been carried over into the field of farm finance. 

 Let us assume that the farmer is selling a security to the in- 

 vesting public. If he tries to sell a mortgage, that is, to bor- 

 row the mone}^ on it, the buyer of the mortgage must inspect 

 the farm very carefully, and also the state law with respect 

 to mortgages and do a number of other things which are la- 

 borious and require some expertness. This method of buy- 

 ing mortgages on inspection is a very unsatisfactory method. 

 The result is that mortgages do not sell advantageously. 

 The essential principle behmd our new Rural Credit system 

 is the substitution of a standardized security — -that is, the 

 bonds of the farm land banks. — for an unstandardized securi- 

 ty, namely the mortgage. Any one with money to invest can 

 safely buy one of these bonds. He does not have to inspect 

 it. The result will be that these bonds will sell much more 

 advantageously than farm mortgages can possibly sell. 

 Only tlinse few in^•est^)rs Avho had the time, the inclination 

 and skill to inspect the mortgage and the farm which se- 

 cured it would be in the market for farm mortgages. Any 

 one who has any money to invest will be in the market for 

 the bonds of tiiese farm land banks. This will make them, 

 sell much more advantageously and at lower rates of interest 

 than would be possible in the case of the unstandardized se- 

 curity, namely the mortgage. 



THE PLACE OF THE FARMER IN THE BODY 



POLITIC. 



Bv Dr. L. H. Bailev. Ithaca, N. Y. 



No one knows what will be the place of the farmer, or any 

 •other member of the body politic in the future; yet we are 



