62 The Condition of the Western Farmer. [340 



to their total value, being in fact considerably over one- 

 third. With interest to pay on such a sum, and with the 

 final payment to provide for, it is no wonder that the years 

 of partial failure, always liable to occur in agriculture, become 

 doubly discouraging to any but the most energetic farmer. 



XIII. REAL ESTATE MORTGAGES. 



Total number of farms mortgaged, .... 91. 



Per cent, of farms mortgaged, 67.41 



Total number of acres mortgaged, 15,720. 



Per cent, of acres mortgaged, 65.39 



Face value of mortgages on record, 1 . . . $145,665.42 

 Less 5.21 per cent, for partial payments, . . . $7,589.17 



Estimated true value of debt, $138,076.25 



Av. debt against each mortgaged acre, . . . $8.78 



" mortgagor, $1,517.32 



" acre in township, . . . $5.74 



" owner in township, . . $1,022.79 



2. We have already seen in Table VII. that in the district 

 which we are considering there are 10,760 acres of land to 

 which the title has come directly from the government; 

 11,840 acres which have been acquired through the Union 

 Pacific Railway, and 1440 acres obtained from the State 

 school lands. Table XIV. will show the relative amount 

 of debt which these different classes of land now bear. 



1 One mortgage, on record, for $50,000, covering 600 acres in the 

 township, has been omitted for the following reasons: It covers, 

 besides the 600 acres hi the township, also 3280 acres in other 

 parts of the county. It was given by a non-resident corporation in 

 the course of a speculative investment in lands. The 600 acres 

 mortgaged is school land, to which the corporation mentioned holds 

 only contracts of sale from the State, and there is a prior debt of 

 $3780 to the State on the land, which latter debt is included hi the 

 tables. The whole transaction is entirely foreign to the general 

 character of land ownership and indebtedness hi the township. 

 In short, since the part of the mortgage attributable to this land 

 is really the unpaid purchase money of the last sale of the land, 

 the matter is treated just as if the sale had not taken place and the 

 land was still in the hands of its last owner. 



