118 



As to the time of the year the money is required it is 

 generally at the end of the season, for harvesting pur- 

 poses; rarely at the beginning of the season, although 

 occasionally for seed loans are made but they are more 

 the exception than the rule. 



MORTGAGE. 



The first source mentioned, that of mortgage, is 

 the classical resource of the land owner. Due to the 

 system of land exploitation in this country, it is rarely 

 of use to the average farmer. As 1 have already re- 

 marked, in Argentina less than 30 per cent, of the 

 farms are owned by the folk who farm them; 70 per 

 cent, of our cereal farmers are tenants. In the U.S.A. 

 60 per cent, of the farmland is directly worked by the 

 owners, 6 per cent, by managers, and the remaining of 

 25 per cent, by tenants. There are 10 owners to every 

 one tenant farmer in the T.S.A. 



In any case, as far as the owners of our small 

 farms are concerned, they utilise mortgage to its ut- 

 most extent, for out of every 5,000 mortgages register- 

 ed, some .'5,000 are inscribed on farms of less than 300 

 hectareas, and of these, two thirds are for sums of less 

 than $5,000 m n. Experience demonstrates that sums 

 of less than $30,000 are the most difficult to raise on 

 mortgage ; on farms or rural properties up to 200 hec- 

 tareas the relatively easiest sum obtainable by mort- 

 gage runs from $2.000 m;n. upwards and rarely ex 

 ceeds $10.000 . In the majority of cases, mortgages on 

 small properties do not have their origin in actual mo- 

 nies advanced, they figure as securities for the future 

 payment of the monies owing on the purchase price of 

 the land, and form part of the system of land purchase 

 by instalments. 



As to whether any and what steps can be taken to 

 make mortgages popular. I believe there is no possible 

 solution to propose which will make money easily ob- 

 tainable Through this system until the land is owned by 

 the people who farm it, for without this to begin with 

 there can be no mortgages, since mortgage is bound up 

 in the possession of the land. Here 1 would like to point 

 out that by facilitating the means, or altering the bases, 

 on which money can be obtained on mortgage, the sub- 

 division of the land is not advanced; on the contrary 

 the effects are to retard the dividing up of the land. 

 In the greater percentage of the 5000 cases of mortgage 

 registered throughout the Republic annually, if the 



