Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1925-10-22
TRUTHS ABOUT
FARMERS LOT
FARM LOAN NUT is SLIGHTLY
CRACKED BUT REAL RELIEF
SEEMS FAR AWAY
BY Edward Percy Howard

farmers are even today held firmly
in the grip Of INSCRIPTIONS financial
interests. Eight years of operation
under the Joint Stock Land Banks
unquestionably has had a beneficial
result. Nevertheless it remains
fact that these institutions have been
unable to develop not more than two
per cent of the possible business in
their field.
Despite this seemingly discouraging
showing, however, economists are
springing up all over the land each
predicting and pointing to statistics
to prove his future to be bright and
rosy.
DIR. David Friday, widely known as
an economist, recently told an audi
ence of farmers in Colorado Springs
that prosperity is surely at hand He
explained that the acres under cultiy
walton have declined since 1870 and
that the farmers who at that time fed
60,000,000 city jewellers, must now
feed 82,O00,000 city folks This, DR..
Friday believes, will mean good
prices and a resumption in the value
of farm lands. Those of a more
pessimistic turn of mind point out,
however, that the city growth in pop
ulation is the result of diminishing
population of the country, and so it
does not matter at what point of the
comlpass the mouth opens-it has to
be fed. Others still fail to believe
that farm prices are based on the law
of supply and demand, or, if prices
are so based that the economic rule
does not seem to increase the net
pocket book figures of those who till
in the soil
Next we find Robert A. Cooper, the
Federal Farm Loan Commissioner,
sounding the note of cheer for the
farmer Mr. Cooper says that the
Federal Farm Loan System is saving
the group of American farmers $780,
100000 in interest, which means that
the farmer has just that much more
to spend for other things. He con,
tends that the records show the pre-
vailing rates on farm mortgages av-
erage now full one per cent less
than they did before the Federal
Farm Loan System came into being.
All of which prompts some farmers to
scratch their heads and wonder. Here
and there one is sufficiently embold-
ened to say he is quite glad to read
statistical proof of his prosperity,
and to learn that the farmers now
have a surplus of $8O,0OO,OOO that
they did not have few years ago,
but he wonders who is holding his
share. The farmer while in many
ways may be quite impractical, in
others is extremely hard headed, and
it is difficult to inspire him to dance
on the waxed floor of statistical
prosperity while he slips on the skid.
ding figures in his bank book.
Relief Too Spotty
The actual fact is that eight years
of actual operation on the part Of the
Joint Stock Land Banks has relieved
farmers in some spots, but the ex-
pansion of the SYSTEMS operations
has been too gradual to make a ma
terial change in the coloring of the
agricultural picture up to date.
Conditions existing prior to the
creation of the Joint Stock Land
Banks were as impossible as they
are incredible. They have been so
explained by no less a person than
Guy Huston, president of the Associ-
alton of Joint Stock Land Banks. Mr..
Huston shows a pictureI of the typi-
cal country bank with a capital of
$4,000 and 100000 in deposits,
which means that the banker is un-
able, under the law, to lend to the
promising young farmer more than
S3,000-ten per cent of his capital,
and then not for the purchase of
farm lands. Yet this banker is the
man on whom the farmer must rely
to finance him into that state of in
dependence he hopes to win by hard
work. If he has saved few hun
dred dollars he can buy his first lot
or farm equipment. Then he must
prevail upon some land owner to
rent him piece of land If the farm
be real economic unit, it will re-
quire at least $4,000 to $4,000 to fin
ance the operation through the first
crop season, so that the young farm
er is almost whipped before he be-
gins, unless he can negotiate addi-
tional loans through his friends.
1t will take the best farmer in the
world five to six years to pay back
his first loans, and own his stock as
well as his implements clear of debt
Then in another five or ten years he
will have accumulated sufficient mon
ey to make first payment on his
farm. Once again it is essential that
he borrow the major part of his pro-
posed Indebtedness and he seeks to
borrow on terms he can meet. At
this stage of farmer emancipation
the banker becomes a useless factor,