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Show s . ! Primary Factors Affecting Financial ! Difficulties Of The Farmer. 0 0Z 20 50 AOZ 07. ' 1 j r J I Low Farm Pr.ces : !f?SSlt2p High Taxes -- - S Wages 2J Freight Rates 33S3 J j High Interest Rates - 2 ; Reckless Expenditures gJ ; i Too Much Credit- -S3 ! SEARS-ROEBUCK AGRICULTURAL FOUNDATION Forty-two per cent of the farmers in the United States blame their finan- j cial difficulties on the low prices of farm products, according to the Sears-, Sears-, Roebuck Agricultural Foundation, which has completed a study of the prl- , j mary "factors affecting the financial difficulties of the farmer based on a sur- j vey made by the United States Department of Agriculture. Seventeen per j cent of the farmers feel that high taxes are the direct cause of the farm do- j pression, eleven per cent blame the high costs for farm labor, ten per cent feci ; that high freight rates are responsible, ten per cent blame the high interest, I six per cent credit the depression to reckless expenditures during boom period, i I and four per cent think it was too much credit. ; An inquiry made by the Department of Agriculture through both blinkers ; j and farmers shows that on an average 5 per cent of the farm owners In 13 , corn and wheat-producing states lost their farms through foreclosure or bank- j , ruptcy during the late depression. Four and a half per cent more hud turned ' over their farms to creditors without legal process, making a toliil of about , 0.5 per cent who had lost their farms with or without lcgul proceedings. An j additional 15 per cent were really bankrupt, but were holding on ibroiigb the . ' leniency of their creditors. P.y groups of slates the percentage of owner- farmers who lost their farms since lli'JO were as follows: Five East North ', Central states, nearly 6 per cent; seven North Central stales, over !i per cent; and for the three Mountain states nearly 20 per cent. The percentage of t'-n- ants who lost their property ran materially higher. ; Records of the Department of Justice indic ate that in the pre-war years, j j 5 per cent of all the bankruptcy eases were fanners. Inning the dell.uion ; 14 per cent of all bankruptcy cases were farmer. In some of tiw. slates where In pre-war years the farmer bankruptcy eases represented about 7 per cent of all such cases, this percentage in l!i'J2 bad risen to nearly .",0 per cent. ; i These losses have not been due to Inellieieney on the part of the farmers, ; points out the Agricultural Foundation, ns practically all of them were. incurred in-curred by men who had been doing fairly well until they entered the period i of drastic deflation. |