22 BULLETIN" 1047, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
To the extent that farm mortgages are the result of investments in 
productive permanent improvements and equipment by existing 
farm owners, they evidence progress and not regression. In general, 
the increase in farm mortgages during each decade since data on this 
subject were first gathered by the census has been most marked in 
sections which have made the greatest progress during the decade. 
Even where improvements of the kind above mentioned are paid 
for out of savings instead of with the proceeds of loans, the increased 
value and price of a farm is quite certain to result in a larger mortgage 
in case the farm is transferred to a new owner. 
In spite of the great increase in farm mortgage debt during the 
past decade, an increase which for the country as a whole has slightly 
more than kept pace with the increase in land values, it may be 
doubted if any other industry shows so small a percentage of mortgage 
or bonded debt as agriculture. The farm mortgage debt in 1910, so 
far as this debt was ascertained by the census, represented 27.3 per 
cent of the value of the mortgaged farms, while that in 1920 repre- 
sented 29.1 per cent of the value of the farms for which mortgage 
debt was reported. The total farm mortgage debt, indicated by the 
estimated figures in Table 1, constitutes 12.9 per cent of the total 
farm values in the United States. 
While the farm mortgage debt considered as a whole is thus but a 
relatively small percentage of the total farm values, and only about 
2 per cent more of the value of the mortgaged farms than was the 
case in 1910, it is true beyond doubt that many individual farmers 
who purchased land during the recent boom period assumed mort- 
gages which even with a continuation of fair prices for agricultural 
products would have been heavy burdens, and which, with the present 
marked disparity between prices of farm products and prices of 
supplies and equipment which the farmer must buy, are a matter of 
very serious concern. 
As sources of farm mortgage loans the commercial banks with 
upward of a billion and a half of such loans continue to be of first 
importance. Ranking second as a source of farm mortgage loans 
are the life insurance companies, with total outstanding loans of a 
billion and a quarter. 
The reports of loans reported by farm mortgage bankers, as ex- 
plained on an earlier page, are very incomplete. Institutions of this 
class therefore are a more important source of farm mortgage loans 
than the figures in Table 1 indicate. Not only do these organiza- 
tions as a class hold a considerably larger amount than the quarter 
of a billion dollars reported, but they annually place a large volume 
of farm mortgages which are passed on to other investors. This, of 
course, is true also of commercial banks, particularly those operating 
in rural districts. 
