7l6 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



time when this cereal commanded a price 30 per cent higher. It was 

 -a different matter when the lands yielded an average of 30 bushels 

 of corn to the acre, as compared with 20 bushels now when heavy 

 outlays for fertilizers are required to secure a crop. 



Farm mortgage is a comparatively new disease with the agricul- 

 turists of America. Fifty years ago, the farmer who was obliged to 

 put a mortgage on his farm was considered next to insolvent, and its 

 clearance was thought highly improbable. They are so numerous 

 now that their increase is hardly noticed by the rural communities. 

 But I believe that at the present day not more than 50 per cent of 

 mortgaged farms are released, except by change of ownership. 



232. THE CENSUS REPORT OF 1890 ON FARM MORTGAGES 1 



Farm and home proprietorship and indebtedness were made the 

 subject of statistical investigation in the Eleventh Census by special 

 act of Congress. No previous census had undertaken a similar work. 

 It was due primarily to the efforts of Mr. B. C. Keeler, of St. Louis, 

 Missouri. In 1889, at a meeting of the St. Louis Single Tax League, 

 he offered a resolution requesting the Superintendent of Census to 

 undertake the investigation covered by this report. The idea was at 

 once taken up, and various farmers' and labor organizations invited 

 to co-operate in the work. "An Address to the People of the United 

 States" was sent to every labor, religious, and agricultural paper in 

 the country, and to the weekly editions of the great daily newspapers. 

 Several boards of trade, the Patrons of Husbandry, the Knights of 

 Labor, the Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union, and many religious 

 bodies and labor organizations indorsed the movement and joined in 

 requests to Congress to authorize a thorough investigation of mort- 

 gage indebtedness in the United States. To these requests Congress 

 promptly acceded. 



VALUE AND INCUMBRANCE OF FARMS 



Value. The farms cultivated by owners and subject to incum- 

 brance number 886,957, 2 and the value, as reported, is $3,054,923,165. 

 New York has a larger aggregate value of such farms than any other 



1 Adapted from "Report on Farms and Homes: Proprietorship and Indebted- 

 ness," Eleventh Censtts of the United States, 1890, pp. 3-143. 



1 There were, in addition, 2,255,789 farms free of mortgage cultivated by 

 their owners and i ,624,433 hired farms. It was not thought practicable to attempt 

 to secure statistics as to the incumbrance of this large class of tenant farms. 

 EDITOR. 



