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produce merely for the love of it. They must consider their bank 

 balance just as other business men do. In the long run, as many 

 people will engage in farming as are necessary to produce the sup- 

 plies needed by society and taken by society at a price which will 

 justify the operation. Farming must pay and that is a prerequisite 

 to its extension. The task of the organized agricultural agencies of 

 all sorts is to improve rural life so that it will be profitable to the 

 present farmers and attractive to those seeking new enterprises. 

 They must omit nothing to improve processes, to promote economies, 

 and therefore to relieve farmers of economic burdens in production, 

 to control and eradicate animal and plant diseases and insect pests, 

 and to better distribution and marketing. 



It would be desirable to facilitate land settlement in more system- 

 atic fashion. This has too long been left to the haphazard intervention 

 of private enterprises, and the Nation has suffered not a little from 

 irresponsible private direction. I think it is high time for the Federal 

 and state governments both, as well as local communities, to seek 

 to aid in land settlement by furnishing actual facts, reliable informa- 

 tion, and agricultural guidance to beginning farmers and to promote 

 well-considered settlement plans. 



OWNERSHIP OF FARMS SHOULD BE ENCOURAGED. 



It is particularly vital that the process of acquiring ownership of 

 farms be encouraged and hastened. This is now the process. Tenancy 

 has its dark sides, but it also has its bright sides. In no inconsiderable 

 measure, it is a step towards ownership. It is a stage through which 

 many of our owners have passed and are passing. It is a stage at 

 which the young farmer, in many instances, begins his career. The 

 statistics indicate that 76 per cent of farmers under 25 years of age 

 and that only about 20 per cent of those over 55 are tenants. With 

 few exceptions, in the older sections of the Union owning farmers 

 form the largest percentage of the farming population. Characteristic 

 exceptions are found in such states as Illinois, where, for peculiar 

 reasons, a high degree of tenancy and of absentee ownership exists. 

 On the whole, the conditions do not furnish ground for pessimism. 

 Still, it is incumbent on us to take every feasible means of expediting 

 the process from tenancy to ownership. A helpful influence in this 

 direction is the farm loan system and especially its practice of having 

 vendors of land take second mortgages subordinate to the first mort- 

 gage of the land bank, enabling the farmer to secure a better rate of 

 interest and to make payments over a long term of years. I have no 

 doubt that the development of the principle of cooperation, especially 

 in respect to personal credit unions, would be a further step for 

 hastening this process. In the meantime, let us study carefully the 



