Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1893-10-05

STATISTICS GATHERED BY THE
BUREAU OF LABOR.
Amcrense of Foreclosures ON Acre
Held for Speculation and
n Decrease of Foreclosures on Ag-
ricultural Holdings,

st. Paul, Oct. 1.-The state bureau of
TABOR, among its other statistical iabors.
~ c"ntinuIng its study, which it began
aoout TWO years ago, of mortgage in
ueotcdness and foreclosures. In uddi-
uoii to collecting its W statistics re-
iatinS to the subject. the bureau has
made some comparisons between the facts
secured by the United States census de-
pertinent and those rahulated by itself.
Inc census discloses the amount of mort
gage debt in force in Minnesota Jan. 1,
1870. The special work Of the state
bureau gives the mortgage foreclosures in
1881, 1891, and also for 1892 and 1898.
The statistics for the two latter years
Will BE- embodied in the next regular re-
port OF the bureau. The conp arison Of
the mortgag &c debt in Minnesota with
that OF the foreclosures in 1891 disclose
the following ratios:
ile total amount of mortgage indcbt-
cdness resting on acre property Jan. 1,
1870, was 1858 ,562. Of this debt
therc were foreclosed during the year
1871 S2,ooO,301. The total foreclosures
Oh acre property III the state were there
lore Z.i2 per cent of the face of the
deDt on that class of real estate in the
preceding year. This ratio does not.
however, show the average amount of
foreclosures on farm property for the rea-
son that there Is in Minnesota a large
amount of acre property other than that
used for farming. In certain counties,
as Kamsey, Hennepin, St. Louis and
Washington, the land sold by foreclosure
was property purchased or held for spec
niatiye purposes mainly. Then the land
IN many other counties is valuable mainly
for the timber or minerals which il con-
tains. Thus there are i'm the state six
teen counties in which the land sold by
foreclosure in 1891 was mainly or cx-
clusiyely held for speculative purposes or
for purposes other than agriculture. The
mortgage debt of sixty-six counties main
ly devoted to agriculture amounted TO
So3,6o1,f94 of which there was sold by
foreclosure i'll 1891, 81, 145, 961. This was
~ per cent of the amount of the debt
In force on the same property the pre-
cedlng year. But while the rat:,j of
foreclosure in the sixty-four agricultural
counties was as given above, the ratio
In the other sixteen was for acre property
4.oS per cent, or % times as great.
In those counties the debt in force on
acre property being $40, 747, 794, with IN
amount of foreclosure of 1904, AL.
HE mortgage debt on city or town
lots In the state was larger i'm amount
than upon all acre property, both agri-
cultural and speculative timber and min
eral. The mount was S122, 800, 4O7, on
which there were foreclosed S5,951 ,4S5.
or 4.S6 per cent. This ratio for city lots
was thus practically the same as that
disclosed by the sale of speculative acre
property in counties like st. Louis. Hen
nepin ana Ramsey.
But while the ratio of foreclosures for
the sixty-four agricultural counties was
2.O6, that of eighteen counties, including
Winona, Mower and Olmsted, which are
devoted to mixed farming, showed in
8 a ratio of only 1.32. These same
counties ten years earlier, when devoted
mainly to wheat, had a ratio of fore
closures more than five times as great,
or greater than the present ratio on city
lots for the state.
The highest ratio of foreclosure in 1891
was found in Cook with q percentage of
l5.55, and the lowest in Nicollet, which
had a mortgage debt of $45G,621 and had
no foreclosures. Among the others with
a small ratio are Cass, with Il percentage
of IL and Mcleod with .16.
The study of the bureau of labor into
the mortgage foreclosures of 1892 has
not yet been completed. So far as they
have gone they show an increase of fore
closures on speculative acre property and
town and city lots in all the smaller
cities and of the larger ones with one
exception. But while there is this in
crease in the foreclosure on speculative
property in the last two years over
those of 1891 there is a decrease in the
foreclosures of farm property in most
counties. Thus the ratio of foreclosures
in Freedom county in 1892 and 1893 is
approximately only about o~ne-fourth and
one-ffth of those of the earlier year.