News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1889-02-21
Western Farm Mortgages.
A COUNTY IN NEBRASKA MoRTGAGED 70
DOUBLE THE VALUE OF THE LAND.

Western Farm Mortgages.
A COUNTY IN NEBRASKA MoRTGAGED FOR
DOUBLE THE VALUE OF THE LAND.
The american Wool Reporter re-
Gently published the results of an in
quiry concerning farm mortgages in
one county of Nebraska. The inves-
tigation was made by gentleman
connected with that journal who, the
reporter says, believes in the merits
of the western farm mortgage bust
ness. He procured complete record
of all the mortgages in force in Phelps
county, Neb., on Dec. 1, 1888. 1t
appears that while the number of
farms in the county at the beginning
of the year 1888 was ,459, the num-
Der of mortgages on December l was
2,051. The assessed value of the
land was 1896, 542, and the total
amount of the mortgages was 81 ,09l,-
999. The valuation of the land for
assessment is said to be low. 81
have selected Phelps county," says
the gentleman who collected the sta
tistics, ''as one of the best possible
illustrations of the extent to which
those western farms are mortgaged
in the early stages of their develop
ment." This was county in Ne
braska. Some facts stated by Mr..
Frank Wilkeson in a letter in the New
York Times in relation to farm mort
cages in Kansas, have a certain inter-
est for investors. Writing from Sa-
lima, Kan, Mr.. Wilkeson says: 1t is
estimated that at least 5000 mort
gagged farms in central and western
Kansas have already been abandoned
and the exodus has but commenced.
The people who are travelling, or who
are preparing to travel, eastward. are
not homesteaders or entrymen who
have obtained extension of time in
which to make final proof, because of
drought or grasshoppers, as was the
case decade ago, when the roads
which led eastward blazed with light
from hundreds of camp-fres but they
are men who, having mortgaged their
farms, realize that arid zone land is
unfit for cultivation, and they are
leaving the region never 10 return.
The migratory movement is not con-
fined to the dupes of the "change-of-
climate theory. But scores, yes,
of farmers who titled up
land, which is in the famous "golden
belt" of Kansas have abandoned their
upland farms because they realize
that they cannot pay their mortgages.
Five of my neighbors have aban-
doned mortgaged farms this fall and
three more will quit struggling next
spring-haye quit now. in fact, be-
cause they make no pretence to pay
money or to provide for its
payment. Nine-tenths of the mort
yagors are on their farms. They are
sullen. They are angry. They have
resolved to hold the land if it is pos
sible. They feel that they have been
youged in some mysterious way, (none
Of them believe that their trouble
,prang from the tariff. These angry
men are preparing to make trouble for
The holders of Kansas farm mortgage
IS. They realize their desperate finan-
;ial condition and they haye cast about
or means of relief. They have de-
,ided to attack the farm mortgages.
The whole of central and western
Kansas is plastered with mortgages.
t is not a mortgaged farm here and
mother one yonder, as it is in New
FORK, but almost all farms are mort
jagged. In the western counties of
Kansas the mortgages are of small
ace value. But in the ''golden belt"
egion of Central Kansas as high as
5000 has been frequently loaned on
60 acres of agricultural land. But
7hen a farmer tills encountered land
With encountered tools that are drawn
" mortgaged teams and frey wind
>nrns up two consecutive corn crops,
4 is evident that he cannot pay inter-
,st money--it matters not the size of
lis mortgage-ray taxes and live.
This truth is so self-evident that it is
that men who have invest
d their hard-earned and harder saved
money In these pretended gilt-edged
ecurities have not realized this eco
ionic fact.
Eastern investors must understand
hat the farmers of Kansas, almost
Without exception, support the move
nent, which is directed against the
of the legal provisions
obtained in the farm mortgages as
hey now exist. The farmers are the
state, and the State is going to exert
is utmost power to prevent its citi-
ems from being utterly impoverished
md reduced to tenantry. Investors
ire going to lose interest money be-
ore this question is settled, 1t is an
.asy matter to grind an individual
armer to powder in the courts. 1t is
mother and wholly different matter
% grind 100000 farmers into powder
when they are banded together for
and have forced the
State, instead of the individual, to