AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



year; 1 and the average duration of farm mort- 

 gages in the United States is about five years. 2 

 From this we may conclude that in the above 

 named states not much more than from one and 

 two-thirds to two and one-half per cent, of the 

 farm mortgages are foreclosed. But we cannot 

 argue from this that from ninety-seven and one- 

 half to ninety-eight and one-third per cent, of the 

 mortgages are duly paid, out of the profits of agri- 

 culture. Many cases will come to the mind of 

 the reader, where the unsuccessful aspirants to 

 landownership have sold their mortgaged farms 

 in order to pay off the mortgage and save a part 

 of their original investment. How r ever, it is fair 

 to say that the vast majority of such adventures 

 prove successful. 



A classification by age groups of the owners of 

 farm homes, in the United States, may be ob- 

 tained for the years 1890 and 1900, which gives 

 the percentage of the owned farm homes which 

 are encumbered. This classification is shown in 

 the following table : 3 



1 George K. Holmes, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1896, 

 Vol. X, p. 49- 



2 Eleventh Census, Report on Farms and Homes, p. 109. 



8 These figures were calculated from the Report on Farms 

 and Homes for 1890, and from Vol. II of the census for 1900. 



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