TENANCY AND L A N D O W N ERS H I P 



die life he owns the farm free of debt. ... It is 

 not surprising that the casual observer, seeing 

 many owners apparently deeply in debt, should 

 be alarmed at the state of things. On closer ob- 

 servation one finds, however, that in most cases, 

 the hard-working tenant and the interest-paying 

 owner are both prosperous and rapidly becoming 

 independent." 



Mr. Henry Strong, whose business it was to 

 sell railroad lands and lend money on farm mort- 

 gages, said; 1 "J ust after the panic of 1873, and 

 during the years 1874, 5, and 6, I loaned several 

 hundred thousand dollars in Illinois and Iowa 

 upon farm mortgages, and all of these loans, with 

 two exceptions, were paid. These exceptions 

 were in cases of large farmers, who were speculat- 

 ing in cattle in the Chicago market, failed in busi- 

 ness, and turned over the mortgaged lands to me, 

 aggregating about three thousand acres of mostly 

 cultivated farms, which I divided up and rented to 

 about a dozen tenants. These lands were after- 

 wards nearly all bought by these tenants, and so 

 far as I know, owned by them or their grantees. 

 .... I could cite a great many similar instances." 

 This quotation, which was published in the same 

 number of the same magazine as that quoted from 

 Mr. David King, corroborates the generalizations 

 made by the latter. 



But while many held this view there were 



8 North American Review, Vol. 142, p. 251. 

 239 



