Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1919-05-12


take note Of what they are doing rather
than pay attention to the gabble of
parlor bolsheviks, who would play with
fire with all the responsibility of
dement's Or the adolescent insane.
WHAT CHANCE TO OWN A FARM?
Times Republican,: what chance
has young man with land $500 an
acre to ever own1a farm"
That question was asked in equal
seriousness when land was SIS an
acre. 1t was problem quite as serious
then as it is now. s ~
A Carroll county farmer-andt Car
roll county is one of the leading farm
counties in this state of high class
farms and high land prices, says that
the opportunity of young man to
start farming and succeed is better
now than when land. was $50 an acre.
He points out that one man can do
more and better work now with ma
chinery and mechanical conveniences
than two men used to be able to ac-
complish, and argues that with present
prices for produce it is easier to pay
for an acre Of land than when corn
was at low ebb and all farm produce
was cheap.
There's something in it. The OBJ
Z b -
servation of those who lived when
land was SD an acre will support the
Carroll mans conteption. The records
of mortgages that; ranNwith little ex-
cept interest paid for decade after
decade supports him. Interest rates
were high and prices low. The yoN1g
farmer of those days laid out job
when lie bought farm OH small pay
ment.
/ True. enough the small payment
down, and the long mortgage time
permitted many young men to begin
owning farnH without much more
Than the first payment and a span OF
horses and a stirring pillow, bnttthe
records show how the payments drag
ged and the stories the old folks tell
Of how they lived and what they went
without shock modern young people.
OF course they made money on the rise
of the land-but they didn't make that
| money until they sold the farm.
| When the land went UP to $50 an
u 4 40
acre the same thing was said II
never be able to pay for it, But the
shrewd farmer and thrifty person with
good and thrifty wife did pay for
it, bought the adjoining quarter at
S75 and the one on the north at 500
and became director in the bank. ran
for the legislature and so on and SO
forth. Prices went UP this or that year,
The hit it on the cattle he held for the
June market, this and that circum-
stance brought him the money for pay
ments and he paid it off. He couldn't
show you set of books but he can
show the deeds to the land. IA
And now with prices high and no
prospect that prices OF h0gs,l catue
and corn will ever again be low with
modern machinery that double and
|trebles the effectiveness Of the farmer
who works, with the scientific trai III
ing that every young farmer should
have to assure success, why can't he
lbuy $500 an acre farm with the same
confidence that his grandfather bought
lat $50 and his father perhaps at $50:
They said the same then as now
l.How can young man. ever hope to
Town a farm" But the young man
bought it just the same and the middle
LACED men had it paid for and was wait
ing for old Jones to die and his esta te
administered in order to buy the eighty
that cOrnered.
Chances are that things will go ON
the same way whether land is $50 or
$500 an acre.