LAND TENURE AND LAND POLICY 669 



Mortgage encumbrance on owned land. Although approximately 

 6 out of 10 acres are operated by the owners in the United States, in 

 many cases the nominal owners hold only an equity hi the land. 

 Statistics on farm mortgages were gathered in 1890, 1900, and 1910. 

 They related only to farm land operated by the owners, the part 

 owners in most cases having limited their reports to the land owned 

 by them. 



The percentage free from mortgage in the United States declined 

 from 71 . 8 in 1890 to 66 . 4 in 1910. The percentage of farms operated 

 by owners under mortgage in 1910 was greater in the West North 

 Central group of states than in any other division, although that 

 division was the only one in which there was a decline from the per- 

 centage prevailing in 1890. The district having the highest percen- 

 tage of farms operated by owners encumbered east of the Mississippi 

 was the East North Central division. Mortgaging of farms operated 

 by owners appears to have been least common hi the Southern states, 

 although compared with the percentages prevailing in 1890 in those 

 divisions the practice appears to have been growing with remarkable 

 rapidity. 



Outside of the two North Central groups, there appears to be no 

 correlation between the percentage of land leased and the extent to 

 which the owned land is mortgaged. In those divisions, however, we 

 find both the highest percentage of the farm land operated under 

 lease and the highest percentage of the remainder of the farm land 

 owned under mortgage. 



In all sections of the country there was a decline in the ratio of 

 debt to value of farm property between 1890 and 1900. The equity 

 increased from 64. 5 per cent in 1890 to 72 . 7 per cent in 1910. This 

 was in spite of the increase of 40 . i per cent in the amount of indebted- 

 ness on the average American farm between the two dates. The 

 amount of equity increased 106 . o per cent. It seems, therefore, that 

 the rise in the value of mortgaged farms was so great that the 

 increase in mortgage debt could not keep up with it. This was less 

 true of New England and the Middle Atlantic states than of the 

 remainder of the country. The proportion of the value of mort- 

 gaged farms covered by mortgage was highest in those divisions 

 in 1910. 



To summarize, in 1910 in the United States as a whole 33. 2 per 

 cent of the farm acreage was operated under lease, 6 . i by salaried 

 managers, about 20.4 by owners under mortgage the mortgage 



