722 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



kinds, or the facilities for credit to carry himself and family through the evil 

 days and into the ever-returning periods of good crops, fair prices, and return- 

 ing prosperity. This is not the case with new farmers with small resources 

 in a new countiy. . . . They cannot command sufficient credit to carry them 

 to the better times, and their farms are sold by mortgage foreclosure. (Con- 

 sequently) in a new country . . . farm failures become very numerous after 

 every general loss of crops due to any cause and also after every period of 

 depreciated prices for farm products. 



With this view of the conditions under which the loans were 

 secured, let us turn to a study of mortgage foreclosures and the 

 liquidation of mortgage debts. 



Probably there are no more accurate measures of the burden 

 of mortgage indebtedness than the relative frequency of fore- 

 closures and the progress made in the liquidation of the debts. 

 The data at hand permit the consideration of mortgage fore- 

 closures in New Jersey, Illinois, and Minnesota, the liquidation 

 of farm mortgages in Michigan, and the relative rates at which 

 mortgage debts upon acre tracts and city lots were liquidated 

 during the ten years ending with 1889 throughout the various 

 states of the Union. 



It is the general impression that the number of failures is 

 relatively less in farming than in other gainful pursuits. In New 

 Jersey, however, for almost a decade the average yearly number 

 of foreclosure executions upon farms somewhat exceeded the 

 number of mercantile failures in that state reported by Brad- 

 street's. The reluctance with which capital is advanced upon 

 farm lands also indicates the unfavorable agricultural conditions 

 existing in New Jersey. It is, moreover, reasonable to suppose 

 that all of the states whose farm lands declined in value have 

 suffered some of the disadvantages of mortgage debt that are 

 illustrated by New Jersey. It is of interest to note that in nearly 

 all such states the number of mortgages given yearly throughout 

 the last decade, upon lands used for farm purposes, did not 

 increase, and in some instances actually decreased. In a con- 

 siderable number of them, when due allowance is made for the 

 number of acre tracts subject to mortgage and held for specula- 

 tive purposes within city limits, there was a noticeable decrease 

 in the mortgage indebtedness incurred upon lands used for farm 



