FARM MORTGAGES. 49 



Utterly unfit to produce corn, excepting in excessively 

 wet seasons." 



The picture given of life on Saturday in a Kansas 

 town is certainly a startling one : " It matters not how 

 dull the town has been during the week, on Saturday 

 the streets are crowded with people ; on that day chat- 

 tels are sold to satisfy the overdue mortgages. At pres- 

 ent these sales are numerous in the West, outside of the 

 corn belt, and a very large portion of these do not real- 

 ize sufficient to pay the mortgages. Teams, wagons, or 

 horned stock, which six months ago were considered 

 ample security for a loan of from $100 to $150, fre- 

 quently fetch at public auction 25 per cent, less than the 

 price of the mortgage." 



So important has the question of increased mortgage 

 indebtedness become, that the Cleveland Administration 

 thought itself justified in appropriating $250,000 for col- 

 lecting the statistics relating thereto. 



*' Mr. Henry M. McDonald, President of the Traders' 

 Bank, Pierre, Dakota, estimates that the volume of 

 Western-mortgage business, confined chiefly to Kansas, 

 Nebraska, Minnesota, and Dakota, has reached the sum of 

 $150,000,000 yearly. It may exceed his figures. That 

 it is of great magnitude is evident from the fact that in all 

 Eastern cities (and in most of the towns and villages) 

 are located numbers of agents who make a living from 

 the commissions paid them for securing loans. Boston 

 numbers more than fifty agencies of farm-mortgage com- 

 panies. It is computed that Philadelphia alone nego- 

 tiates yearly more than $15,000,000 on Western loans. 

 Kansas and Nebraska have 134 incorporated mortgage 

 companies. The companies organized under the laws 

 of other States, but operating in these two States, in- 



3 



