E. C. Young

The Farm Mortgage Credit Situation in the United States

For fourteen years farming in most parts of the United States has been in a continuous state of absolute or relative depression. Following the general slump in 1921, farming failed to participate equally with industry in the rising tide of prosperity of the 1920s. Beginning at a point in 1921, near the prewar level, agriculture was slowly regaining a condition of equality with other lines and by 1930 had nearly reached par as far as price levels were concerned. During this period, however, farming costs were rising on account of the competition of industry for labor and the increasing tax and general overhead burden imposed by a prosperous industry. During this period not much progress had been made in reducing the load of debt or in adjusting it to a more reasonable basis for service. During this period the steadily shrinking value of farm real estate narrowed the margin of equity which farmers had in their farms. The year 1930 found farming in most parts of the United States, and particularly in the Mississippi Valley, exhausted by years of depression, with depleted reserves and poorly prepared to withstand the reversal which started then and culminated in the farm credit crisis of 1933. The long depression developed the conditions which made possible and intensified the crisis of 1933. The causes of the depression lie deep in fundamental maladjustments in our economic life, but the agricultural crisis was primarily a crisis of credit. Farming, because of its increased commercialization in recent years, contributed more to the financial crisis of 1933 than to any previous crisis in our national history. In this paper it is the plan to discuss the development of the agricultural credit crisis of 1933 and to consider briefly developments in connection with it during 1933 and 1934, the relation of the credit crisis in farming to the financial panic of 1933, the progress that has been made in relieving the crisis and the outlook for the farm mortgage problem for 1935 and for following years. Ever since 1921 farm foreclosures have been mounting in the

Economic Aspects of the Administration of Groups of Farms under Northern Conditions

Farming has remained a business of small units in a society in which consolidation and centralization of management have been the rule for many years. Experiments in large-scale farming operations in the past have not been so universally successful as to encourage extensive use of this method of land administration. This has been particularly true in the diversified farming regions of the North Central States. The obvious economies that may be affected by the large organization have in most instances been offset by losses entailed by increased physical distances, by lack of contact between employer and employee, by the discontinuous and seasonal character of farm work, and by the lack of standardization and the development of routine methods. The farms in the United States require something like six million executive heads. About two-thirds of all those engaged in the industry are in this class. One of the great weaknesses of the industry lies in the fact that under its present organization executive responsibility must of necessity rest in large measure on persons not well qualified to carry it. However, because of the limited volume of business, farming does not offer a great opportunity for men of exceptional executive ability. Students of this problem have long considered ways of modifying methods of farm organization that will make it possible for persons of exceptional ability to extend their influence over a wider range without losing the many economies now tied up with small unit operation. A number of considerations are becoming of increased importance in this connection. 1. There has been a rapid increase in the amount and effectiveness of technical information in farming. The wealth or practical information and minute details that