294 Cooperation in Agriculture 



for generations, the lending of money on mortgage in 

 America still remains largely a mere brokerage business, 

 unrestricted by proper governing laws, either by indi- 

 viduals or corporations, while mortgages continue to be 

 drawn up for three or five years, when experience shows 

 that the average life of a loan is far in excess of that 

 period and needs to be renewed time and again, with 

 added expense to the debtor and trouble for the creditor. 

 Had the European amortization system been employed, the 

 companies dealing in western farm mortgages between 

 1890 and 1894 probably would have escaped the misfor- 

 tunes that brought them down to ruin. 



"Amortization is simply a method W paying off a loan 

 by returning a little of the capital each year. These 

 payments are called annuities, and are composed of the 

 interest and contributions to the sinking fund and the 

 cost of conducting business. They are calculated for 

 periods of 10 to 75 years, and at the end of the period the 

 mortgaged debt becomes extinguished, and the property 

 returns to the owner free and clear of all encumbrances." 



The New Landschaften 



"These new institutions are of different patterns. 

 Several are annexes to the older societies, but most are 

 independent and resemble ordinary mortgage banks, 

 except in the essential point that they have no share 

 capital earning dividends. They are, as the old so- 

 cieties, simply syndicates of borrowers formed to supply 

 proprietors with capital on the lowest possible terms and 

 repayable in the easiest manner. They are gratuitous 

 intermediaries between the outside capitalists and the 



