73 2 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



' companies show that 39 . 03 per cent of the total amount was on 

 United States farms, 59.24 per cent on other real property in the 

 United States, and i .73 per cent on real estate elsewhere. 



The proportion of mortgage loans on farms varies all the way from 

 thirteen-hundredths of i per cent in the Middle Atlantic group of 

 states to 86 per cent in the Northwestern group, the average for 148 

 companies in America being 39.72 per cent of their total United 

 States mortgage loans. In general it will be noted that in the Eastern 

 states the amount loaned on farms is negligible, that in the Central, 

 Northern, and Southern groups the farm loans rise to considerable 

 amounts, but it is in the great Southwestern and Northwestern sec- 

 tions, whose agricultural development in the last fifty years has been 

 so marvelous, that the great bulk of the life insurance farm loans 

 have been placed. On the other hand we find that over half of the 

 loans on real property, other than farms, have been placed in the 

 populous commercial and manufacturing sections of the New England 

 and Middle Atlantic states, which contain very nearly half of such 

 property values of the entire country. 



The relation of farm loans made by life insurance companies to 

 total farm loans as given by the United States Census of 1910 (the 

 latest available estimate) is shown in Table "B." 



It should be said in explanation of the amount of farm loans given 

 by the Census of 1910, that the enumerators included the data only 

 of mortgaged farms occupied by the owner, o that mortgages upon 

 rented farms were left out. 



It contains also a column showing the savings bank deposits in 

 each state for reference later. 



A very interesting fact is brought out by this table, viz., that 

 while the amount of farm mortgages reported by the Census in the 

 New England and Middle Atlantic states is more than twice as great 

 as the amount in the South Atlantic and Gulf and Mississippi Valley 

 combined, the life insurance companies have loaned less than 

 $1,000,000 in the New England and Middle Atlantic states, while 

 they have loaned over $40,000,000 in the South Atlantic and the Gulf 

 and Mississippi Valley. The obvious explanation is furnished by the 

 column showing savings bank deposits. The local accumulations of 

 savings bank and private capital have taken care of the demand for 

 farm loans in the older and more populous sections of the country, 

 leaving the life insurance funds contributed in large part by these 

 sections free to flow under economic law into the newer sections where 



