RURAL CREDITS 



757 



plans and specifications of model cotton warehouses capable of 

 construction at a cost of from $i.ooto$i.25 P er bale capacity. I 

 hope the Conference will appoint at this session a special committee 

 on uniform warehouse laws, to the end that there may be adopted, 

 as the ultimate outcome of this Conference, some uniform warehouse 

 law and some uniform cotton warehouse receipt applicable to every 

 southern state. 



But probably the most important problem confronting the present 

 Conference is the outlining of a vigorous campaign for the continua- 

 tion of crop diversification in the South during the year 1916, and' 

 to this end I believe that every possible agency of the Southern 

 States Bankers' Association should be brought to bear. As a result 

 of an increase of seven million acres planted to feed and food, southern 

 farmers have produced the 1915 cotton crop at the lowest cost in 

 many years. It seems to me that prudent and conservative banking 

 should dictate that, in so far as possible^ southern bankers base their 

 credits to southern farmers next year upon their self-supporting 

 ability. I believe that each state association should, beginning 

 immediately, conduct a campaign all over the South under the aus- 

 pices of the bankers' agricultural committees acting in conjunction 

 with the United States Department of Agriculture and the agricul- 

 tural and mechanical colleges. For, while I believe that the average 

 southern banker realizes that sufficient feed and food acreage, and 

 the raising of the farmer's meat supply on the farm mean a greater 

 prosperity and safer banking for the South, how many southern 

 bankers will take the initiative, basing their loans upon this condi- 

 tion, and requiring of southern farmers the insurance policy of suffi- 

 cient feed and food for self-support ? Dr. Bradford Knapp suggests a 

 farm credit rate sheet, hi order to make sure of self-support, to be 

 used by bankers and merchants in giving credit to farmers. 



243. THE RATE-SHEET AS A MEANS OF STANDARDIZING 



CREDIT 



Texas bankers who make a practice of loaning money to farmers 

 have adopted, for their own protection and for the guidance of bor- 

 rowers, what is known as a "crop rate sheet for safe farming and bank 

 credit." Taking a 4o-acre two-horse farm as a unit, this sheet states 

 the live stock and the quantity of food and feed crops necessary to 

 support on such a farm a family of five. The prospective borrower 

 is requested to state in the same way the actual system followed on 



