BUYING FARMS WITH LAND-BAXK LOANS. 5 



EXTENT TO WHICH LANDLESS FARMERS HAVE BEEN AIDED BY 

 THE FEDERAL LAND BANKS. 



It willbe clear also that by no means all of the loans made for 

 buying farm land represent the borrowings of landless persons. 

 A considerable number of such borrowings may be made by persons 

 who already own farm land. Such persons ma}^ be operating the 

 farm owned, or they may be renting it to others while they are them- 

 selves operating land as tenants. 



Table I. — Federal land haul; horirjtcers huying land toho answered the ques- 

 tionnaire, classified from the standpoint of ownership of other land and of 

 tenure status as fann operators. 



Class. 



Total in each 

 group. 



Owning other 

 farm land. 



Not owning other 

 farmland. 



^--ber.P--^. 



Number. 



Per cent 

 of group. 



Number. 



Per cent 

 of group. 



Tenants 



752 



1,290 



12 



36.6 



62.8 



.6 



28.5 



1,077 



6 



37.9 

 83.5 

 50.0 



467 



213 



6 



62.1 



Not tenants 



16.5 



Not indicated whether tenants or not tenants. . . 



50.0 



Total 



2, 054 





1,368 



66.6 



686 



33.4 









Table I presents a classification of 2,054 borrowers purchasing land 

 for whom the facts regarding tenure and ownership status were as- 

 certainable from the returned schedules. It will be noted that almost 

 exactly two-thirds of these borrowers owned land other than that 

 which they were buying by the aid of the Federal farm-loan system, 

 and only one-third belonged to the landless class. When one bears in 

 mind that probably not more than 15 per cent of the loans made by 

 the Federal land banks have been for the purpose of bujdng farm 

 land; that only one-third of the.<5e borrowers were landless, assum- 

 ing the above answers to be representative ; and, finally, that the total 

 loans of the Federal land banks probably represent only about S 

 per cent of the entire farm-mortgage indebtedness of the United 

 States, it will be clear that the direct aid afforded hj the system to the 

 landless farmer in the acquisition of land has been relativelj' small. 

 It should be noted, however, that it is a much larger proportion of 

 the total new business. Moreover, not all hindlcss farmers arc per- 

 sons who require unusually favorable credit fa-cilities to aid them in 

 buying farm land, for some landless farmers have wealth which may 

 be u.sed in buying land, and some landless persons who desire to buy 

 farms are not farmers at all. 



It is probable that the relative use mad^ by landless farmers will 

 increase as the possibilities of the Federal farm-loan system for 

 financing the purchase of farms becomes better known among this 

 class. The small proportion of the loans made to total mortgage in- 



