506 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 



securities offered under this system, which would be of unquestionable 

 value, would meet with public favor. 



Mr. Drury : How coukl a young man bny eighty acres of land 

 costing $150 an acre? He has to give good capital to start with. 

 He has to have a still larger loan to own an Iowa farm. 



Mr. Hogan : You are striking at a subject that is a very im- 

 portant one, and is something that this does not solve, except that 

 it gives the farmer cheaper money. You people on your farms, as I 

 take it, are just like the directors of a railroad company. If there 

 is a better method of marketing your farm loans you are foolish 

 in not doing it, just the same as the directors of a railroad com- 

 pany would be foolish in not marketing their bonds in a better way, 

 if the public wanted them that way. My idea in regard to that 

 matter was that in order to establish this system in the first place 

 we have got to make it absolutely safe, without any question, in 

 order to sell the bonds. My opinion is that one-half the value 

 would be as far as we ought to go at the present time. In Ger- 

 many and other European countries they loan two-thirds of the 

 value on farms and have no trouble. If the land is not taken 

 care of, they have a right to foreclose it, but there is not very 

 much question about that. You see the annual payment of one- 

 half of one per cent on the principal cuts it down, and would 

 cover any depreciation any way. 



Q. "Wouldn't this assist the speculator instead of the farmer, 

 who needs it? 



Mr. Hogan : You don 't mean that it would not help the farmer, 

 but that it would help the speculator also ? 



Member: It would help the speculator more than the fai-uicr. 

 It would be my idea that the farmer and the man who works on 

 the farm should have the benefit of that, and the speculator go some- 

 where else. 



Mr. Hogan : It would be a good idea, but it would be hard to 

 regulate by law. 



Mr. Oliva : In the matter of these farm titles, did you inves- 

 tigate the methods which they had in the foreign countries as to 

 what constituted a good title ? You will agree with me that in this 

 state we have a very poor system of arriving at what constitutes 

 a good title on a farm. 



Mr. Hogan : I asked that question repeatedly in Germany, and 

 they said that the land titles were good because the state was be- 

 liiiid Hicin. You know in a foreign country it is a little liai'dcr to 



