18 BULLETIN 874, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
There are enough deals on narrow margins of cash and at sub- 
stantial rates of interest to cause considerable trouble if fundamental 
conditions should become unfavorable to agriculture in the near 
future. It may be a matter of some concern, considering the high 
levels of value characterizing these purchases and the great uncer- 
tainty as to the future course of prices of agricultural products, 
that more than one-fourth of the sales were effected on a total 
cash payment of 25 per cent or less, while nearly two-thirds of the 
cases involved cash payments of less than 50 per cent; that the average 
mortgage indebtedness incurred is 64 per cent of the sale price, and 
in 110 of the cases involving mortgages it is 80 per cent or more of 
the sale price; that one-fourth of the sales involved second or third 
mortgages, and that a considerable majority of the mortgage indebt- 
edness is contracted at rates of interest amounting to 54 per cent or 
more, whereas the ordinary rate employed in calculating farm labor 
income is 5 per cent. 
LEGAL CHARACTER OF CONTRACTS. 
No systematic and comprehensive study of the legal character 
of contracts was made with a view to determining the relative 
number of the different kinds of contracts, but by general inquiry 
various methods employed were ascertained and certaim conclu- 
sions may be drawn therefrom. 
Generally speaking, there was no extensive buying and selling of 
mere options of purchase. It is indeed fortunate that the methods 
employed were not carried to this extreme. 
The great majority of the contracts were contracts of specific 
performance, that is, the seller agreed to deliver, possession and 
title of a specific piece of land in substantially the same condition 
as at time of sale, meanwhile keeping buildings, fences, and other 
improvements insured and repaired. The delivery of title was 
made contingent upon the making of certain cash payments and 
the assumption of certain other obligations on the part of the buyer. 
For the most part, as already noted, the delivery of title and posses- 
sion was to take place on the March 1 subsequent to the making 
of the contract, and at that time the buyer was to make a substantial 
cash payment upon the land and at the same time to assume formally 
such indebtedness as had been agreed upon. 
Generally, in case of subsequent sale before acquisition of title, 
the former purchaser entered into a formal contract of sale with the 
new purchaser, although not yet the holder of the title which he 
agreed to transfer. In some cases a series of these contracts of sale 
_ were made for the same piece of land. 
The fact that the contract called for specific performance in the 
delivery of a particular piece of land is of significance because if for 
any reason one of the parties to any of the series of contracts failed 
