Earning Their Farms

The Reason for the Mortgages on our Farms.

Told by a Practical Farmer of Lima, who Knows Whereof he Speaks- The Farmers. Better off than the City People.

Lima, Jan, 10, 1888. Mr Editor. - A good deal has been published lately about the farms of Michigan being so heavily mortgaged, and in an article in your paper of Dec. 30, you censure Labor Com Heath for publishing the mortgage statistics as you believe it will be injurious, by stopping emigration to this state, thus lowering the price of farms. I beg to differ with you for these reasons.
It is impossible for a man of moderate means to secure a good farm in an improved part of the State without running in debt, if he follows farming as a business. In looking around among my neighbors. I find that most of them commenced by working by the month or day. Others perhaps had a small start from home. In fact not less than three-fourths of the farmers of Lima started with very small capital; and what is true here is probably true in all southern Michigan. Two thousand dollars is generally considered a safe investment on an 80 acre improved farm worth $5,000; a much safer investment than $1,500 would be on 40 acres. For it requires as good a dwelling, team and tools and nearly as large a barn on forty as on eighty acres. On a farm devoted to grain and stock raising, the general expense being about the same, it takes all the income of the 40 acre farm to support the family while the 80 acres will give a surplus to apply on payment.
One reason for buying more land than you can pay dawn for is this first purchase constitutes your farm for life, in three cases out out five, for it is very seldom that you can buy any land adjoining you unless you take a whole farm.
If a farmer succeeds in paying for his first purchase before his ambition is allayed he becomes discontented. To have a dollar that is not promised to some one makes him perfectly miserable, he dislikes to put it in the bank, loan it to his neighbor, or keep it, for fear he will lose it. If he can not buy out his neighbor he offers his own farm for sale.
The farm sold he does not buy one he can pay for but, elated by his first success, he goes deeper in debt than before; in fact a farmer that does not spend his money before he earns it is at least considered rather odd.
Now, these farms are paid for over and over again from the farms themselves, although the grand total of indebtedness may remain the same or more, by new men entering the debtor class as the older ones get out. Surely these facts should not deter any one from settling in a state where the farmers credit is so good, and where the per cent of failure is less than that of any other class of speculators (for buying a farm and expecting to pay for it from the farm is speculation).
And to show you that the farmers of Washtenaw county are as well off as their village neighbors. even if their farms are one-fifth covered with mortgages, I have prepared a table of the political divisions of Washtenaw county. showing the average wealth of each individual and of each family in said divisions. The first column of figures denotes the number of inhabitants in the township or city, the second column the number of dollars each person would have, the third, the number each family would have if the property were divided equally.

1 Pittsfield 1,257; $1,162; $6,472.
2 Webster 929; 1,212; 5,992
3 Lima 1,007; 1,114; 5,343
4 Dexter 772; 1,064, 5,070
5 Sharon 1,162; 951; 4,982
6 Superior 1,214; 997; 4,765
7 Ann Arbor Town 1,442; 964, 4,453
8 Lodi 1,227; 873; 4,401
9 Northfield 1,229; 786; 4,394
10 Freedom 1,328; 711; 4,260
11 Ypsilanti town 1,354; 930; 4,193
12 Bridgewater 1,215; 846; 4,113
13 Lyndon 671; 805; 3,972
14 Salem 1,310; 845; 3,796
15 Saline 1,764; 801; 3,554
16 York 1,872; 725; 3,290
17 Scio 2,189; 727; 3,246
18 Ann Arbor City 7,912; 636; 2,709
19 Manchester 2,542; 585; 2,629
20 Sylvan 2,266; 538; 2,359
21 Ypsilanti City, 5,301; 464; 1,910
22 Augusta 1,736; 394; 1,660

My figures are taken from the census of 1884 and from the assessment rolls of the county. as taken by the various supervisors for the year 1887.
It will be seen at a glance that the people devoted to agriculture are better off financially than those devoted to other pursuits. In other words, the townships having no village within their borders, heads the list, Augusta alone, being an exception, and perhaps that can be accounted for, by a remark made by a juryman 'from that township some years ago: " We are not half as poor in Augusta as you might think, our supervisor only assesses us for about one-fourth what we are worth." - W.H.D.