will retain possession of a farm even when it pays a low rate of
interest, rather than sell and invest the proceeds in some other
enterprise which they cannot control as individuals or which may
suddenly depreciate in earning power, fail or be utterly destroyed.

Is Land a Safe Investment?

Though it is true that farm land does not pass out of existence in a
day, nevertheless it is by no means a safe investment, as witness
the numerous abandoned farms in the older agricultural sections of
this new country. It is easily possible for one of means to become
land-poor--to have investments in land which will not pay the taxes
and upkeep of buildings, fences and so forth. At prevailing prices
for farm produce and labor there are vast areas of land in the older
states far past the point of possible self-redemption; and, as a
matter of business, one might better burn his money and save his
energy than to expend all his resources in half-paying for such
depleted land, depending upon the immediate income from it to raise
a mortgage covering the unpaid balance.

Intelligent optimism is admirable, but fact is better than fiction;
and blind bigotry paraded as optimism is dangerous and condemnable.
Some one has said that such a bigot is not an optimist but a
"cheerful idiot." To purchase rich, well-watered land at a low price
and become wealthy by merely waiting till the land increases in
value tenfold, while making a living by taking fertility from the
soil, has been easy and common in the great agricultural states
during the last half-century. But, paradoxical as it may seem, land
values have increased while fertility and productiveness have
decreased and, with shorter days for higher priced and less
efficient farm labor, with more middlemen absorbing the profits
between the producer and the consumer, it is now difficult indeed to
buy land with borrowed money and pay for it from subsequent farm
profits. If continued soil depletion is practiced, ultimate failure
is the only future for such investments.

That vast areas of land once cultivated with profit in the original
thirteen states now lie agriculturally abandoned is common
knowledge; and that the farm lands of the great Corn Belt and Wheat
Belt of the North-Central states are even now undergoing the most
rapid soil depletion ever witnessed is known to all who possess the
facts. Unless this tendency is checked these lands will go the way
of the abandoned farms.

Som