338 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



higher education, research and extension in agri- 

 cultural science and practice (see Chapter X). 



FINANCING FARM ENTERPRISES 



California farming began with the handicap of very 

 high interest rates on loans for undertakings and 

 improvements in farming. There were the basic 

 rates for far western loans, higher naturally as the 

 State was the farther west and to these geographically 

 normal rates was added the increment usually im- 

 posed on loans for mining. In this way 1 per cent 

 a month seemed a very moderate figure and if it was 

 doubled and compounded nobody was surprised. 

 There were no usury laws; any interest agreed to 

 was legal, and it is so to this day. As decades ad- 

 vanced, rates became lower but indisposition to coun- 

 try loans was more marked than at first, as the city 

 banks grew larger and more metropolitanized and 

 country bankers alone would take country chances 

 and naturally exact full pay for their favors. No 

 great change took place in the cost of farm financ- 

 ing until land development was taken up by com- 

 petent persons who came to California with personal 

 credit gained in their earlier commercial and pro- 

 fessional lives and were able to deal with banks in 

 something like their accustomed ways. Also some 

 advantage was gained by cooperative warehousing of 

 grain, as noted in Chapter V. No marked change 

 was realized in bringing farm producers nearer to a 

 parity with dealers in commercial commodities in 



