230 



AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



years. 1 From this we may conclude that in the above-named 

 states not much more than from one and two-thirds to two and 

 one-half per cent of the farm mortgages are foreclosed. But 

 we cannot argue from this that from ninety-seven and one-half 

 to ninety-eight and one-third per cent of the mortgages are duly 

 paid, out of the profits of agriculture. Many cases will come to 

 the mind of the reader, where the unsuccessful aspirants to 

 landownership have sold their mortgaged farms in order to pay 

 off the mortgage and save a part of their original investment. 

 However, it is fair to say that the vast majority of such ad- 

 ventures prove successful. 



A classification by age groups of the owners of farm homes, 

 in the United States, may be obtained for the years 1890 and 

 1900, which gives the percentage of the owned farm homes which 

 are encumbered. This classification is shown in the following 

 table: 2 



TABLE XV 



THE PERCENTAGE OF OWNED FARM HOMES WHICH WERE KNOWN TO BE 

 ENCUMBERED, IN THE NORTH CENTRAL DIVISION, IN 1890 AND 1900, 

 CLASSIFIED BY THE AGE OF THE OWNERS 



From these figures it will be seen that the percentage of 

 encumbrance increases from youth to middle age, and declines 

 from middle age to old age. This fact, and also the relation 

 between the increase in the percentage of mortgages and the 

 decline in the percentage of tenancy, is shown more clearly in 



1 Eleventh Census, Report on Farms and Homes, p. 109. 



8 These figures were calculated from the Report on Farms and Homes for 1890, 

 and from Vol. II of the census for 1900. 



