TURE 
gait es 
FERS Bees A 
Washington, D. C. | May, 1925 
SOME ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF FARM OWNERSHIP 
Trends and variations in Some Financial Burdens and Benefits of Farm Ownership in the 
Spring-Wheat Belt During 25 Years. [Illustrated from the History of Selected Farms in 
Cass County, N. Dak., 1896-1920 
By CHarLtes L. Stewart, Agricultural Economist, Bureau of Agricultural 
Heonomics ; 
CONTENTS 
| Page 
BaD OSCHANGESCODELOL INQUIEY eee tea ug SEO Ag A ea Oe ges 2 
Long-time average conditions of ownership________________ geal ets eee eee Ss 
Ped Srein, OW RETShiprcon di tion Saenetrt 6 ra eter ye ede pee A Pye Oe 7 
BMeviatious trom) orends. in| Ownership: conditions... 0) ee a 15 
ANICICIpALIONS Ole bie sbUturel Dy zOWwNerse) £22 Leh Mier 1s Ow ee ei 16 
AGIUSUMENTS An senting and, purchasing farms 24 2.08 ee ER ee Ee 22, 
Records of cost and income? in using land over periods reaching 
back to the nineties or before should be of special value to those 
who own or consider buying farms, particularly those buyers who 
must carry the cost and pay out the purchase price from income 
derived currently from the use of land. Such persons need to figure 
largely in terms of a full life span or generation. This is true de- 
spite the fact that costs and incomes in land utilization are subject 
to ebb and flow above and below the trends which they take in the 
life span of an owner, and despite the further fact that both the. 
trends and deviations may differ in the next 20 or 30 years from 
those of the past generation. 
The factors affecting the economic position of landowners need 
special study in their shifts and changes during a period in which 
_money was generally losing power to purchase commodities and real 
estate; in a period, in other words, in which prices were moving from 
the vaileys of the nineties to the peaks of the later teens. The 
peculiarities of this quarter century should be understood by one who 
would take a clear view either of the succeeding quarter century or of 
the more immediate parts of it. 
1In 1919 the Division of Farm Population and Rural Life, in charge of C. J. Galpin, 
instituted a study of the social aspects of farm tenancy in the community of Amenia, 
N. Dak., with Walter H. Baumgartel as field investigator. Many of the economic data used 
here were first located in this way. The study was continued and summarized in this 
report in the Division of Land Economics in charge of L. C. Gray. 
22422°—25 1 
