AGRICULTURAL RELIEF 
673 
Mr. KeTcHAM. As you know the situation in your section of tho 
State, about what proportion of the farmers have their farms free of 
mortgage debts? Are 50 per cent of the farms free from mortgages? 
Mr. SEXAUER. I really have not any definite figures to base an 
opinion on. I think probably those figures are available, but I do 
not happen to have them in my mind. 
Mr. Kercaam. I think that is generally true, about 50 per cent. 
Mr. SEXAUER. I judge that it is. I think probably our section of 
the country is freer from that than some of the other sections, inas- 
much as some farms have been handed down from generation to 
generation and inasmuch as it is in a dairying section and dairying 
has probably been in a better condition than the rest of agriculture, 
and 50 per cent of the income in our State comes from dairying. 
Mr. KercuaM. Right in that same connection, could you give the 
committee any notion of the relative number of tenant farmers in 
your section? 
Mr. SExAvERr. I can not; that information is available, but I do 
not have it. 
Mr. KErcuaM. I understand it is gathered, but I have not been 
successful in getting it right here. 
Mr. SExavUER. I can not tell you. 
Mr. KErcEAM. And in this connection I think the general statement 
is that approximately 30 per cent of the farms of the United States 
are tenant farms. 
Now, take first the farms where there is no mortgage indebtedness. 
Do you think that the interest charge there is a very material 
consideration? 
Mr. SExavuEer. Very material. 
Mr. KercaaM. Where there is no mortgage indebtedness? 
Mr. SExAUER. You say where there is no mortgage indebtedness— 
excuse me; I would say that the interest charge would not bother. 
Mr. KerceaM. Do you think that the interest charge is a very 
material factor that causes the tenant farmer any considerable loss 
of sleep at night? 
Mr. SExauEer. No. 
Mr. KercuaMm. Then, if it be true that 50 per cent of the farms of 
the country are owned free of mortgages and another 30 per cent of 
them are farmed by tenant farmers, why, of course, so far as interest 
charges are concerned, while it is a mighty heavy burden upon 20 
per cent as for the 80 per cent occupying those two classifications, 1t 
does not cause them to lose much sleep at night. 
Mr. Jones. It does the tenant farmer in my section, I will state. 
He mortgages his crop in advance and sometimes pays 10 or 12 per 
cent interest. . . 
Mr. KercEAM. Mr. Jones, the point I think is this, of course, if 
he pays cash money rent, but so far as rents go in our section not very 
many farms are rented upon a cash basis. 
Mr. Jones. There are not in our section. But the tenant farmer 
has to borrow money and to pay high rates of interest and mortgage 
his crop in advance to buy machinery. oo 
Mr. KErcHAM. You are misconstruing my question. I meant the 
mortgage indebtedness upon the land. 
Mr. Jones. No: not in that sense.