Arizona republican., 1913-06-21
Berlin.

Ssp3 ' L scIersth that can STOW Cf ad- A Vars.ly is the most impressive
 lesson vhi.h rural Europe has
 had to tell tne American Com mission oh Agricultural Co-operation. American agriculture has no such lesson. American farmers have been an endowed people. No European peasant farmer would believe you if you told him of the new fertile farms. the size of bakers dozen of farms such as he has been used to, that were given away 10 American farmers a generation ago. Did the farmers of any nation ever receive such an endowment as was given these pioneers who crossed over to America and into the prairie lands of the then West?
 But what Of the stay-at-home father and brother and cousin of these pi- onee-sE They had only their old farms. They were just then getting these lands as their own to be per mitted tO enjoy some Of the fruits of their labor for themselves. The pieces of land which they did get were not only old and worn out but small Then came wars-sorue ones else wars. 10 be sure, but the land owner and the peasant had to pay the fiddler - and foreign armies swept over their farms and took what they liked for themselves. As though the wars were not enough, the noneyIen1- CTS added their pest Then came com petition from the new lands across the Atlantic That is ne dolefuI tale of European agriculture cf the eight eeath and early nineteenth centuries
 But even Kings must ponder whose | ~1- ' lE of life This was the case with Fred erick the Great of Prussia after the Seven Years War had laid the farms of his kingdom bare. The farms of Prussia were in bad shape. A large outlay Of money was necessary to bring them to their normal state of fertility This was the way Frederick the Great went about getting the money 70 build up the lands Of his Kingdom.
 Up to that time the individual land owners when money was needed had gone to a money lender and mortgagcd his land. He paid inter est rates that even .n the United States would seem outrageous. But perhaps the security Of the indi- Nlcual landowner wasn't particularly good. At any rate. he couldn't get money from anyone else. so he had to accept such terms. But Frederick the Great went to other sources of money supply and said. Lend me money" What is the security?" they asked. All the lands of my king dom." Now such security as that had never before been heard of in the mortgage bushes IL created con siderable competition among the money lenders and the German land owners found themselves as a result getting their money at far lower rates of interest. At first these German landowners had displayed the regu- IatIon noble conservatism. They did not want to go into the association which the King proposed and take chances on having thelr lands sold to pay the debts Of the association But the King forced them to join and once they were started on the new road they kept to it as easily as they had 10 the old road to the private money lender. And the practice has contin- ued in Germany up to this time. The old methods have been discarded and more modern systems installed. but the mortgage business of the Empire IS still conducted on that principle no individual mortgages. but collect i've security.
 To return to the other side of the mill pond. the American farmers were getting along very well without any mortgages. They didn't need to fer tilize land that had never been cuIti- vated before, and 1t was not profitable to spend money to get a higher yield of wheat or corn per acre when more land could be had for a song. When