348 . MissoiDi Agricultural Report. 



NEED OF A FARM-CREDIT SYSTEM. 



(S. M. Jordan, Agricultural xVdviser for Pettis County, Mo.) 



In the short time that I have I shall discuss a question that is 

 not new, but quite old. It is new, however, 

 largely to America, but across the briny Atlantic 

 it was worked out years ago. It was worked out 

 in those countries because of absolute pressure, 

 and I wonder whether, with our degree of in- 

 telligence in this country, we are going to wait 

 until absolute necessity and pressure drive 

 us to the solution of this question. 



We find our farm tenancy on the increase. 

 Fewer people than ever before are owning farms, 

 s. M. Jordan. ^^^ unless we modify the situation which is with- 



in our reach, that condition is going to continue to increase. If we 

 expect to make it possible for the young people who are to become 

 farmers in Missouri and elsewhere in this country, we must at the 

 same time make it possible for those individuals at least to own a 

 part of the land they till. There is not much of a prospect for a 

 young man and a young woman to begin life together when that 

 prospect is to spend that lifetime on a rented farm. Now, if we 

 cannot modify that condition, I can make you the absolutely sure 

 promise that the brightest and the best of our young manhood and 

 womanhood will continue to drift away from the farm, and I say 

 that this, in the past, has been a calamity in our country. We are 

 as yet not more than half civilized. Under our scheme of civiliza- 

 tion we are taking the very cream of our manhood, the perfect 

 types of our youth, and drafting them, possibly, for war and train- 

 ing them to kill. We are taking that quality of manhood and 

 putting them into the armies of this country and training them for 

 a defense that in my opinion is not a right defense. The defense 

 of this country is built up by the quality of its citizenship and not 

 by the size of the armies, and if we will train the farm boys and 

 girls, if we will put that quality of citizenship on the farms, they 

 will take care of this country in the future as they have taken care 

 of it in the past. 



But let us paSvS directly to the questions under discussion. From 

 1899 to 1909 the production of cereals increased 1.7 per cent. The 

 prices increased in the same length of time 79.9 per cent. The 

 increase in population in the ten years named was 21 per cent. The 



