71 8 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



life, full of expectancy, industrious and aspiring to build homes. 

 On the contrary, where nature has been most miserly in bestow- 

 ing her riches, where social and political conditions are unsettled, 

 and where there is a population whose lives have been full of 

 disappointment and who are by nature pessimistic there we 

 should expect to find a small amount of mortgage indebtedness. 



It is ^generally conceded, for example, that our Southern States 

 have lacked industrial enterprise. Consequently, we find that of 

 the families occupying and owning farms in Kentucky but 4 per 

 cent have encumbered properties ; in Georgia, Florida, and Ten- 

 nessee, 3 per cent ; and in North Carolina, 5 per cent. Turning 

 to some of the Northern states, we find the following percent- 

 ages : Ohio, 29 per cent; Indiana, 33 per cent; Michigan, 49 

 per cent ; and New York, 44 per cent. Likewise, it is generally 

 recognized that during the decade covered by the last census, 

 there was unusual enterprise and industrial activity in the South- 

 ern States, owing to the ingress of Northern energy and capital ; 

 yet it was during that period that the increase of debt was no 

 per cent in North Carolina, 313 per cent in Tennessee, 262 per 

 cent in Georgia, and 559 per cent in Florida. 



Again, during the ten years ending with 1889, mortgage in- 

 debtedness increased much faster in the cities than in the coun- 

 try ; for the former the total was 217 per cent greater in 1889 

 than in 1880, while for the latter it was but 71 per cent greater. 

 Yet during this period the cities offered larger industrial oppor- 

 tunities than the country, thousands of laborers acquired homes, 

 building and loan associations multiplied and flourished, and 

 urban wealth most rapidly increased. 



That mortgage indebtedness has also greatly increased in the 

 Western states is a fact known to all. In Kansas 60 per cent 

 of the taxed acres are under mortgage ; in Iowa, 47 per cent ; 

 in Nebraska, 55 per cent; in Missouri, 25 per cent. But wealth 

 and social well-being have also multiplied. Probably no farming 

 country in the world ever increased in wealth at an equal rate, 

 or in so short a time attained those conditions that render 

 life attractive and that minister to the intellectual, social, and 

 religious wants of man. 



