THE FARMER AND HIS CREDITORS. 109 



often, if not usually, incurring serious debt. In the more 

 sparsely-settled portions of the United States a great part of 

 the mortgage indebtedness was incurred in this way, and of 

 this much is never likely to be paid. This is especially true 

 of the semi-arid districts. 



There is another kind of speculative indebtedness among 

 farmers which concerns a great number of individuals, 

 although for the most part concentrated in comparatively 

 small and well-defined districts, which is indebtedness incurred 

 for developing the fruit industry. The production of fruit is, 

 perhaps, the most speculative occupation which farmers can 

 engage in. No one who plants an orchard can by any possi- 

 bility know what will be the outcome of his enterprise. He 

 may make a great deal of money, or he may lose every cent 

 of his investment, and that from causes wholly beyond his 

 control. Similar speculative indebtedness has been incurred 

 in the development of dairying, truck farming, and other 

 agricultural industries whenever the hope of selling land or 

 supplies has induced effort to create undue expectations of 

 profit from special agricultural operations. 



The foregoing brief review of the causes of speculative 

 indebtedness among farmers is given for the purpose of 

 making clear to all wdio are indebted in this way just where 

 they stand. No debtor is likely to make any wise move 

 towards extricating himself from his indebtedness without 

 looking the situation frankly in the face. Until he is ready to 

 acknowledge to himself, his family, and others interested, the 

 exact facts and probabilities of his situation, he will act under 

 the influence of illusions, and his premises being wrong, his 

 conclusions will certainly be unsound. 



An indebted farmer who finds himself regularly able to 

 meet his interest payments, make some reduction of the' prin- 

 cipal, and keep clear of floating debt needs no suggestiojis 

 from these pages. He understands his business. If, however, 

 he is working to the limit of his strength, with old age coming 

 on, his wife breaking down from overwork and anxiety, and 

 the mortgage interest kept up only at the cost of an increasing 

 floating debt, with its accompanying torment of duns, he will, 



