LAND MONOPOLY. 669 



xerxes and Nehemiah. We give below an extract from a 

 letter from Kansas, describing the condition in one county: 



u There are 7,600 real estate mortgages on record in 

 the office of register of deeds in this county, and they will 

 average $500 each, which makes a mortgage indebtedness 

 of $3,800,000. To pay the annual interest at 10 per cent. 

 requires $375,500; add to this $38,000 interest charges on 

 county indebtedness, and we have a total of $433,500 that 

 goes out of the county every year to fill the coffers of an 

 idle, non-producing class, besides we have an enormous 

 bonded debt to pay. The interest on this debt requires 

 $3.00 per acre for each acre of tillable land in the county, 

 or, at the present price of corn, it will take seventeen 

 bushels for each acre. Our December court reports 164 

 more tenant farmers; and so the good work goes on. n 



But Kansas is in no worse condition than many other 

 States. In North Carolina the average farmer, in many 

 instances, is compelled to pay from 20 to 40 per cent, more 

 than cash price for his supplies to enable him to make a 

 crop. 



The amount advanced for supplies in South Carolina, 

 in 1885, is estimated at $8,500,000; the value of the cotton 

 crop was $21,969,766. Total value of all products $32,971,- 

 280. Demonstrating that one-fourth of the crop was 

 pledged before it was produced for exorbitant interest on 

 money and profit on the necessaries of life. 



It is stated that in Alabama 45 per cent. *of the 

 farmers, white and colored, are heavily in debt, without 

 available means of liquidation, and that not less than 65 

 per cent, find it necessary to seek assistance from the 

 county commissioners and the merchants. They pay over 

 50 per cent, more for their supplies than cash prices. The 

 report says the cost of this indebtedness to the agriculture 

 of the State in diminished production and improvement 

 and increased wear of farms is not less than $5,000,000 



