MEANS OF ACQUIRING LAND 



these men are usually close-fisted, and more or less 

 miserly in character. They are not willing to 

 take any risk. They lend to the men whom they 

 know. They take mortgages on land, the value 

 of which they can readily ascertain. Some of 

 these men, perhaps the most of them, deal honor- 

 ably ; but they charge a higher rate of interest than 

 the farmers can well afford to pay. But while 

 some, perhaps the most, of these men who lend 

 money to the farmers deal honorably, there are 

 men in this business who have rightly been called 

 "land sharks." These men watch for a chance to 

 foreclose a mortgage and get a farm for much 

 less than its real value. Having the farm in their 

 possession they wring all they can from the tenants 

 who are so unfortunate as to contract for the land, 

 or they sell it to some farmer who gives a mort- 

 gage in part payment; this done the land shark 

 watches his chance to get the farm again for much 

 less than the price for which he sold it, as he had 

 done before, and so the process is continued until 

 untold damage is done to his fellowmen. 



Besides these moneyed men who live in the 

 neighborhood and lend money to the farmers, 

 there is usually some one who acts as the agent of 

 some large insurance company, and whose busi- 

 ness it is to lend the funds of the company to the 

 farmers. These loans are secured by mortgages. 

 The company is in no hurry for the money, and 

 has no use for the land. The main objection to 

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