THE FARMER AND HIS CREDITORS, 107 



states joined in the westward march, their places to a certain 

 extent being taken by those farther east. 



This movement had two important results: in the iirst 

 place, it brought large sums of money into the country to be 

 expended for farms or land, and, in the second place, it created 

 a constant home market on the frontier for supplies of all 

 kinds to be used by families while opening up their own 

 farms. In addition to this the rapid increase of population 

 greatly increased the home market for all kinds of manufac- 

 tured goods; the building and lumber trades were marvelously 

 stimulated, as towns and cities sprang up everywhere. 



The result was a steady increase in the value of land on 

 the western frontier and for a long distance to the east of it. 

 Farmers bought the best of land for a dollar and a quarter an 

 acre, lived on it a few years, and sold out at a large advance. 



As this process went on continuousl}^ for many years, there 

 grew up in the community a settled conviction that the way 

 to wealth for the farmer was to incur debt for land. The more 

 land a man owed for the faster he was assumed to be getting 

 rich. Whenever an entire community becomes imbued with 

 a speculative disposition of this kind, and results regularly 

 continued for generations seem to justify anticipations, noth- 

 ing will cure it except an absolute demonstration continued 

 through many years, of the final bursting of the bubble. 

 Such a demonstration began with a panic in 1893, and will 

 continue until rural communities thoroughly learn that never 

 again in this country is it likely to be safe to incur debt in the 

 expectation of paying any portion of it from the "rise in land." 



Agricultural land is now as high in the United States as it 

 ever will or can be until the cheap lands of other continents 

 are settled and the population of the earth so increased as to 

 require its entire surface for its sup{>ort. A great portion of 

 the indebtedness of the farming class is of this speculative 

 character, and of such indebtedness a great part can never be 

 paid. The early settlers in a new country, who endure the 

 privations incident to settlement, and build the roads, school- 

 houses, churches, and other public improvements, are entitled 

 to the natural increase in the value of their holdings which 



