5 G ECONOMICS OF LAND TENURE IN GEORGIA [50 



landed estates during the past generation were sliced 

 and sliced until only a slice was left. In this way also 

 many of the smaller farms were lost to their owners. 

 And in this manner much land has come into the posses- 

 sion of merchants in the small towns. Of course not all 

 the lands now owned by merchants were acquired from 

 defaulting creditors, but an interestingly large percent- 

 age of their holdings was so acquired. 1 



The Eleventh Census (1890) undertook to shed some 

 statistical light upon the question of real estate mort- 

 gages throughout the country. According to this in- 

 vestigation, 75,848 mortgages were recorded against 

 18,130,372 acres of land in Georgia during the decade 

 from 1880 to 1890. 2 This was on the average about 

 7,500 covering 1,800,000 acres each year. This average 

 means little, however, since there was a noteworthy in- 

 crease from year to year throughout the period. In 

 1880, 3,353 mortgages covering 793,486 acres were 

 made, while in 1889, 10,242 mortgages were made 

 against 2,298,461 acres of ground. 



Since many mortgages were never recorded, the fig- 

 ures represent inadequately the extent to which titles to 

 land were jeopardized during the period. Of course, in 

 some cases the mortgages instead of representing a 

 jeopardizing of landholdings really indicated the reverse 

 — that is to say, a mortgage sometimes marked the 

 beginning of the acquisition of a farm. But in most 



1 It is estimated that in Coweta county — a typical cotton-raising county 

 —fifteen per cent of the land is owned by merchants. This estimate is 

 approximately correct, for a person knowing all the merchants of the 

 county was generous enough with his time to consult the tax digest of 

 the county and to tabulate the amounts of land returned by the mer- 

 chants of the county. 



2 Eleventh Census, Real Estate Mortgages, p. 371. 



