The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1885-01-15
Mortgaging Made Easy.

If there is one thing that S0utnern
farmer had rather do than raise all cotton
and no grain, it is to give mortgage
The borrowing mania has been fatally
prevalent since the war, and the only
thing saved from the remorseless line of
liens is the land which the banks are for.
bidden by charter from accepting as
security.
The mortgage, however, has recently
been made easy by the establishment of
large loan agencies, most of them of
foreign management and foreign capital,
which have come into our midst full
handed and rapacious. They are lending
money right and left, upon planting
lands, at rates ruinous to the borrower,
who realizes only a proportion OF the
face value of his note and who is pledg-
ed to pay heavy interest upon hctl'
cious amount. Fifteen or twenty per
cent. for FIVE years will consume any
business in the world, and the day of
reckoning will find thousands of acres
passing beyond control of their present
owners.
The Chronicle would not keep capital
from the limits of the State, nor would it
cut off from the planter any form OF
salutary or legitimate relief. This capi'
tai. however. does not come for invest
ment or for development. 1t is surround
ed by plausible conditions, but bristles
with usurping menace. Such schemes are
invitations to the planter to realize, at q
great sacrifice, a little money for his i'm
mediate wants, and are temptations for
him to get rid of his estate in q most
insidious and inevitable way.
The history of the West, with its enor-
nous land monopolies, and the warnings
of the old country, with its landlord
abuses, may present some admonitlons as
the domain these loan agencies will
certainly possess, and the power they
NAV eventually WELD. Thetime has come
when, with the improved systems of
agriculture, its implements aud stlmu'
lants, the planter of the South might be-
gin to realize from his unimproved acres
or uncleared lands. New methods are
being adopted and younger men are
coming into possession of the soil which
they will find hopelessly encountered.
There is general undervaluation of
land by Southern farmers. Many OF
these have been surprised at the liberal
schedules which these loan agencies have
placed upon them. That is just where
the money lender knows more OF our
possessions that We do ourselves. he
knows that the bald hills need a little
fertilizing, and the washed valleys a
slight amount Of ditching. He knows
that the pine groves will be worth their
weight almost in yellow metal before
many years, and that our streams and
mineral veins will yield, when properly
developed, unlimited returns. All these
things he recognizes, md puts value on
field and forest at which the owner stands
astonished. =,
The truth is that they are still below
their real value. What Southern soil IS
capable of creating under Southern sun,
many of our people fail to appreciate;
In skillful hands and under improved
methods, which we must learn to secure
and employ, our broad oases and waste
places may be easily reclaimed. Their
capacity, if cultivated faithfully, is sur
prising, their resources almost boundless.
The practice, then, Of parcelling these
places off by mortgages which the con-
sumer can never hope 10 meet, because
imposed at rates which he cannot begin
to carry, is most alarming. The South
ern farmer can remedy all this and save
himself the necessity OF such policy by
raising those supplies for which he is
now borrowing money to pay, and by
dividing up into small farms, among his
children or tenants, bis unimproved or
unoccuipied premises. The future OF the
Southern farmer is full of danger, and
the mortgage facility is robbing him OF
his last hope and of his best inheritance.
-Auqusta Chronicle and Constitutionahst'