yi6 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



at home ; but now Nebraska alone, after supplying her home 

 market, sends east "450 cars of bread and meat products every 

 day in the year." " Every additional carload of east-bound prod- 

 uct from the Missouri River lessens the cost of every other car- 

 load," and, consequently, compared with twenty-five years ago, 

 " nearly three-fourths of the cost of transportation from the Mis- 

 souri River to New York has been stricken off, and Nebraska is 

 over one thousand miles nearer the Atlantic seaboard." 



In our analysis of the relation of agriculture to means of 

 transportation we have arrived at the following conclusions : 



1. The development of modern transportation facilities has 

 been the prime agency in causing a migration of agricultural 

 industry, and in tending to concentrate it geographically in new 

 fields of production. 



2. The American railway system has been the indispensable 

 condition for the settlement and development of the greater part 

 "of the United States, and its extension throughout the Central 

 and Western states has contributed towards increasing marvelously 

 their agricultural wealth. 



IV. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE INCREASE OF FARM 

 MORTGAGES AND OF FARM TENANTS 



As introductory to this part of our study stands the fact that 

 between 1880 and 1890 the amount of mortgage indebtedness 

 upon acre tracts, in distinction from city lots, increased 71 per 

 cent, or two and one-third times as fast as agricultural wealth. 

 What is the significance of this enormous increase ? Is it con- 

 sistent with permanent economic and social progress ? A satis- 

 factory answer to these questions involves an analysis of the 

 increase, and of the burden of mortgage indebtedness. 



The increase of mortgage indebtedness. It must first be noted, 

 in connection with this topic, that 83 per cent of the growing 

 volume of mortgage debt, 1 880-1 890, was incurred to enable 

 debtors to buy lands, erect buildings, and make other improve- 

 ments, and that more than 94 per cent of it represents durable 

 property. The object for which this increasing indebtedness was 



