302 FARM MANAGEMENT 



his property. With a peasant population such as the one 

 near where Raiffeissen founded his societies it made little 

 difference to the members whether they pledged them- 

 selves for all their property or not, because they had noth- 

 ing to lose anyhow. But the American farmer will not 

 and should not willingly risk his farm and all he has by 

 becoming a member of an association which has unlimited 

 liability of its members. 



THIRD : Farmers do not want any subvention or 

 subsidy from the Government. France has established her 

 agricultural credit institution on the basis of free govern- 

 ment loans and granted legal monopolies the privilege 

 of furnishing real and personal credit to farmers. The 

 farmers of America have no need of free loans from the 

 Government; all that they need is to sell their credit for 

 what it is worth, so that they may borrow on as favorable 

 terms as other industries. 



FOURTH : Agricultural credit organizations should be 

 under Government supervision. The bankers probably 

 will not indorse this proposition heartily. But if the in- 

 terests of the farmers are to be protected and the institu- 

 tions are to be of undoubted security, they must be under 

 direct Government supervision. The success of the Ger- 

 man land mortgage association has been due to the fact 

 that it has been under direct Government supervision and 

 indirectly Government control. 



FIFTH : The credit institution that serves the farmer 

 must be close at hand. Whether it is a bank, a land mort- 

 gage association, or wherever the farmer gets his credit, it 

 needs to be close at hand where he can go personally and 

 make his arrangements. For this reason the large cen- 

 tralized institution located in the cities will not serve 

 the purpose. The farmer needs a decentralized system 



