AGRICULTURAL COLLtGE 475 



inau. It stauds upon a tripod of industries, agriculture, manufacture, 

 transpcrtation. We need no class legislation. We cannot stem the tide 

 which rises from the nature of things and which carries all human en- 

 deavor upon its besom. We may only change the ripples which here and 

 theie play over the surface and obscure the mighty under-current. And 

 as for agriculture — it must pay, for there must be agriculture! 



The t^xam])le of the wheat farm brings up another vital question — 

 the amount of capital invested in the ordinary farm. One hundred acres 

 of average farm land in the eastern states is worth four thousand to five 

 thousand dollars. The equipment is worth one thousand dollars more. 

 Upon this investment of six thousand dollars, the farmer lives in sub- 

 stantial comfort and rears a family; and he often lives upon half this 

 capital. His productive labor is comprised within eight or nine months 

 of the year. What other form of investment shows a like return? 



Vou may grant this, but reply that if the farm is mortgaged the inter- 

 est takes the bread from the children's mouths. The same remark ap- 

 plies to any business. Mortgages are sometimes indicative of agricul- 

 tural liardships and sometimes not. The farm mortgage is commonly 

 misunderstocd. In the West, as already indicated, it is often the legiti- 

 mate otfs^i)ring of speculation and over-development; and the mortyage 

 was given on a rising market and is being paid on a falling market. 

 While the result is serious, it cannot be cured in a day. It will right 

 itself only with time. The present stringency is making investors cau- 

 tious in loaning upon real estate, and farm mortgages may be expected, 

 therffoie, to be fewer and smaller in the immediate future. In the East, 

 the question of mortgages upon farms is not essentially ditferent from 

 the general question of doing business upon borrowed cajjital. Many 

 of the mortgages represent the purchase monej^ of the farm, and are car- 

 ried decade by decade, and ]»ossibly even gencrjition by tvcnera ticn. 

 Most of the business of the world is done upon credits. If the merchant 

 trades upon borrowed capital, why may not the farmer plow upon bor- 

 rowed capital? The chief difference in the result has been thi!t the 

 merchant foresees a downfall and gradually works into another busi- 

 ness or prepares to assuage the blow; the farmer hopes against hope. 

 maintains the same methods, stands the same ground, until the sheriff 

 sells him out. 



vStatistics of mortgages must be studied with the greatest caution, for 

 it is a fact that many mortgages which have been paid never have been 

 discharged; and thereby they remain upon the records. The greater the 

 number of mortgages in any community, the more emphatic the evi- 

 dence of business done upon a credit basis. Mortgages are evidences of 

 faith in the paying ])ower of farming, 



III. — THE REAP.JUSTMENT. 



We have seen that the agricultural question is an old one; but the 

 ills of former times were chiefly those of jioor farminu' and b'd SM-ial 

 order. Our present ills are poor farming j)lns maladjustment to a 

 transition ])eriod in the history of the world. Is there any evidence that 

 readjustment is taking place? I think that the evidences are abundant. 

 We have all seen them, but have too often interpretated them to be evi- 

 dences of disease and decline. We must first understand the movements 



