Farm Mortgages

Tlie late report of our state labor commissloner estimates that Mlcbigaa farms are mortgaged for twenty per cent. of thelr total vulde. Mulhull, the great Bogllib statistician, stated In 1870 tbat their farms were mortgaged for 58 per cent. of their total value, and stbce then, as Sir Edward Bullirán says, tlmt value and the ineoine frotn farms lias fallen over 30 per cent. Our farmers may borrow too mucli. We are inclined to curry too mucb 8iiil for our ballast, yet it s often well to raise money to lm pro re new farms. In our older states, farm mortgages decrease, and borrowers brcoine lenders of moiicy, but In free trade England, a still older country, thcy are far liearii'r tlian in Htcfaigan. Free traders assume and assert that protection leads to farm mortraj;es In tliis stato. If so, what but free trade leads to like mortSagos three times as beavy in Old Enirland? It would be interesting to knowhow much money Michigan farmers, wtio were borrowers ycsterday, are lending to-day.