RURAL CREDITS 



747 



cotton crop in the fall. The credit price is higher than the cash price 

 by an amount which varies with the interest rate but which may 

 safely be put at 10 per cent. In the case of unreliable farmers and 

 tenants, a mortgage is taken on the article sold and the purchaser 

 gives his note. 



It is probable that in most parts of central Texas over 90 per cent 

 of those tenants who owe the store are also indebted to their landlord 

 for larger or smaller advances. Storekeepers, as such, only give 

 credit on food, supplies, implements, etc., whereas cash or its equiva- 

 lent is often needed for mules, feed, and other current expenses. The 

 landlord is practically always involved in supplying this cash. He 

 may make small cash advances in a bad season; and he often sells 

 his tenants teams and feed to be paid for out of the crop. But for 

 larger cash advances the practice is not uniform. In the bottoms of 

 the Brazos and Colorado, and in a few places hi the "black-land belt," 

 there are large "plantations" whose owners prefer as a rule to "accom- 

 modate" their own tenants rather than to "stand for" them with the 

 bank or other lenders. This gives them greater control over their 

 tenants, and unscrupulous landlords may make larger profits by 

 charging high rates. To carry their tenants they may borrow several 

 thousand dollars from the bank each year. Such landlords often make 

 a business of running a sort of commissary. 



On the other hand, the owners of medium and small farms in the 

 black-land belt and sandy regions to the east do not lend any con- 

 siderable amount of cash to their tenants, though they sometimes 

 help them to borrow elsewhere. On the whole, they would rather the 

 tenant would get his money in his own way. 



240. LOANS FOR THE CATTLE-MAN 1 

 BY J. F. EBERSOLE 



The cattle loan company, commonly referred to as "cattle bank," 

 is a middleman between borrowing cattle-owners and lending bank- 

 managers. Its business methods and forms closely parallel those of 

 real estate mortgage loan companies, except for the fact that cattle 

 loans are of shorter duration and secured by mortgages of the chattel 

 variety. Cattle loan companies, incorporated under state charters, 

 have been operating in such cities as Fort Worth, Denver, East 



^rom "Cattle Loan Banks," Journal of Political Economy, XXII (June 

 1914), 577-So. 



