FARM MORTGAGES. 5 1 



America are " an evidence of thrift rather than the con- 

 trary." Borrowed capital has, no doubt, enabled many 

 Western farmers to push their enterprises with a success 

 which they, probably, would not have attained without it. 

 But the payment of the interest on Western farms, with 

 wheat at 80 cents per bushel, is quite a different matter, 

 as compared with the time when this cereal commanded 

 a price 30 per cent, higher. It was a different matter 

 when the lands yielded an average of 30 bushels of corn 

 to the acre, as compared with 20 bushels now — when 

 heavy outlays for fertilizers are required to secure a 

 crop. 



Farm mortgage is a comparatively new disease with 

 the agriculturists of America. Fifty years ago, the farmer 

 who was obliged to put a mortgage on his farm was con- 

 sidered next to insolvent, and its clearance was thought 

 highly improbable. They are so numerous now that 

 their increase is hardly noticed by the rural communities. 

 But I believe that at the present day not more than 50 

 per cent, of mortgaged farms are released, except by 

 change of ownership. 



Before us is the address of Mr. R. Wilkie, the Worthy 

 Master of the Dominion Grange Patrons of Husbandry, 

 delivered at a session of the Order in Toronto, Novem- 

 ber, 1886. From this high authority we learn that a 

 large proportion of the lands of the Dominion are, like 

 the United States farms, becoming hopelessly incum- 

 bered. He said : " Doubtless a very large amount of 

 capital is invested in farming ; but much of it belongs 

 to capitalists, and is only loaned on the land — a very 

 large proportion of which is under mortgage much 

 greater than most people suppose, and much of it is 

 hopelessly sunk . . . The only hope that still re- 



