The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1919-03-31
FEDERAL LOANS FOR FARMERS

Florida farm owners have not par
tieipated as largely as they should in
the advantages of the federal land
banks that have been organized for
the express purpose of loaning money
on farms in order to foster and en-
courage thrifty and progressive farm
ers in the more extensive tiIling of
the soil for the production of more
and better food crops, cattle and live
stock generally. This failure to par
ticipate in federal farm loans is
largely due to local conditions all of
which can and must be overcome
without unnecessary delay. Better
state laws relating to farm and cat
tie mortgages have been discussed
frequently in the Times-Union and
need TO be enacted in order that need
ed loans may be secured by the own
ers of farms and the raisers of live
stock in Florida.
That other sections of the country
are taking advantage of the federal
farm loans is very evident by a
glance at the February statement of
the farm loan board, just made pub
lie. This statement shows that in the
month past loans totaling 14,799, 800
were made by the federal land banks
to 1929 farmers throughout the Unit
ed States. Without knowing definite
ly the number of Florida farmers in
cluded in this totai it is safe to assert
that they were very, very few in num-
Der. This much is certain. that of the
February loans Kansas farmers Sc
cured 1885, 400, leading all other
states. Farm loan banks in other
cities, none in Florida included, made
loans during the month as follows:
ST. Louis. $2,O55, 1855; Houston, Tex,
81 1865, 213; st. Paul, $1,506,6 500; Spo-
kane, Wash, $1,251, 720; Wichita,
Kan, $1.019, 300; Louisville, $751;, 300;
New Orleans. $735, 800; Columbia, S.
c., $500 800; Berkeley, Cal, $473, 800;
Baltimore, $386.9O0; Springfield, o.,
$347, 900.
In all, since the establishment of
the farm loan banks. the total amount
of loans made figure to an aggregate
of 49,, S97, 1854, distributed among
1884 borrowers-compar few
in Florida.
The fact is here emphasized that
Florida farm and live stock develop
ment is not sharing as it should in
the farm loan longtime first mort
gage money that the government is
putting at the disposal of the agricul-
turalists of the country. Florida has
the land, the farms, the thrifty, pro-
gressive people. How much longer
shall they be deprived of the advant-
ages of borrowing needed funds for
the proper development of the thou
sands of acres available and waiting
to produce abundantly and proftably
of the crops and cattle needed for the
food and meat supplies of the nation
and the world ?-Times-U Union, 23rd.
While it is true that Florida farm
owners have not awaited themselves
as freely of the advantages of the
federal land bank system as was pos
sible, yet if all the counties of the
state had done as well as Marion the
loans made in this state would have
been in the millions; the court house
records show 81 mortgages to the
federal land bank with an indebted
ness thereby secured of $1S8, 130, and
the local association in Ocala has 81
applications aggregating ESQ now
on file, already appraised by the ex-
aminer for the federal land bank, and
within the next so days the funds will
have been paid out on all of the APP
proved loans. Marion county with
the best agricultural lands in the
state, with her farmers fast acquir-
ing the knowledge that grade ano
pure bred stock can be raised as
cheaply as the scrub variety and will
yield more weight and better prices;
with the possibility, through the as
sistance of the federal land bank. of
her farmers putting their lands in a
crop in the minimum of time, it will
| be put a few years before lands here
will rank in quality and in selling
price with the best lands of the So
called cattle and hog-raising sections
OF the country. Ocala and her coun-
try has In the past, at various times
been celebrated for her citrus fruit
pentine, her truck growing and hen
populist platform, but in the days
that are coming she will be known as
the center of section that can pro-
| duce more dollars and cents, per acre
! cultivated, than any other section OF
the United States. r. S. Rogers,
Secretary Ocala National Farm Loan
A