404 



GENERAL AGRICULTURAL NOTES. 



[March 1897. 



the total indebtedness of the citizens of the United States 

 secured upon real estate. 



The idea that the farms in the western and the southern 

 States are more heavily burdened with mortgages than those in 

 the eastern and northern sections of the country appears to be 

 an erroneous one. The States along the North Atlantic shores 

 are reported to be quite heavily encumbered with farm mortgages, 

 and New Jersey is said to carry a debt of this kind greater in 

 proportion to its farm valuations than that of any other State 

 in the Union. 



The rate of interest charged on mortgages upon residential 

 property, other than farms, averages throughout the United 

 States 0*84 per cent, less than the rate of interest charged upon 

 farm loans. In seventeen States the average rate charged 

 on the latter class of loans is less than that demanded for loans 

 on residential property. In two States the rates are the 

 same upon urban and rural real estate ; in eleven the rates 

 of interest are less upon money secured by farm mortgages 

 than upon loans secured by other realty in those States ; and in 

 five States, including Kansas, the difference in favour of the farmer 

 is from one-fourth to one-half of 1 per cent, per annum, but in 

 Texas it is over 1 per cent. In this connexion it is pointed out 

 that if the farmers in the west pay a somewhat higher rate of 

 interest than those in the east, persons engaged in other industries 

 in the western States also have to pay a heavier rate on loans 

 than individuals in similar industries located nearer the money 

 centres. 



During the last ten years there is reported to have been a 

 steady maintenance of land values in nearly all sections of the 

 western States, and in some the price of land is said to have 

 risen. 



It is held that between 1880 and 1890 the increase in farm- 

 ing-land values, as reported by the occupiers of the farms, was 

 greater than the entire interest charge for the decade in most 

 of the great agricultural States of the west and south. 



Effect of the American Homestead Act. 



The United States Secretary of Agriculture, in his last 

 Report, calls attention to the fact that during the past 30 

 years nearly 2,000,000 farms of 80 acres each in the United 

 States have been given away by the Government under the 

 Homestead Law of 1866, and that under the Timber-Culture 

 Law the area of land allotted was equivalent to over 550,000 

 more farms of the same size. In this statement no account is 

 taken of the desert land laws, under which numerous allotments 

 of land were made gratuitously, nor does it include the large 

 area of land patented to States and corporations, and sold at 

 nominal prices 



