CHAPTER IV. 



THE FARMER AND HIS CREDITORS. 



THE condition of the indebted farmer who is not mort- 

 gaged requires no special discussion unless he is so 

 deeply indebted that a mortgage has become necessary, 

 in which case what is here said is fully applicable. 



A large number of our farmers have mortgages upon their 

 property, and of the mortgaged farmers the majority have 

 floating debt in addition, and the majority of the unsecured 

 indebtedness of farmers is due and unpaid. 



Since this is a condition which a multitude of farmers are 

 compelled to face, it is worth while to give some study to the 

 business principles involving the proper treatment of all 

 serious indebtedness. 



From the first settlement of the United States to the end of 

 the first third of the nineteenth century, our progress was 

 slow and uniform. Conditions were rude, land abundant and 

 cheap, communications difficult, the rewards of labor moderate, 

 money scarce. The temptation to incur debt was small, and 

 while there are no available statistics to disclose the exact 

 facts, we may safely assume that in the main serious indebt- 

 edness in the farming population was confined to the im- 

 provident, who will always exist and always suffer for their 

 improvidence. 



In the thirties, however, the great tide of immigration from 

 northern Europe began to show its force, and for nearly a half 

 century there was a great and continuous influx of thrifty and 

 vigorous stocks, to whom our cheap lands, and at last our free 

 lands, opened the way to a vast improvement in their material 

 conditions. The majority of these immigrants pushed at once 

 to the frontier, all taking more or less money with them for 

 the purchase of farms already opened, or their support while 

 themselves opening new ones. The farmers of our own middle 



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