Ottumwa Semi Weekly Courier

SHALL HE BUY FIFTY DOLLAR LAND?

We are asked whether a young man with a capital of $500 will be safe in buying an 80 acre farm at $50 per acre on long time at a low rate of interest--5 per cent--and whether he may be reasonably sure of being able to pay for such farm in the course of 10 or 15 years. Everything depends upon the young man himself, the kind of girl he has married and the kind of farm which he buys. If he himself is a worker and saver, with some idea of up to date agriculture; if his wife is a strong and healthy woman, willing to share the burdens and enforced self denials of the term of debt bondage; if the farm chosen is of good quality, responding generously to good treatment, the young man may go ahead and buy the farm with reasonable certainty that at the end of 15 years or less he will own it free from debt. Methods of carrying it on will have something to do with his success or failure. Successful methods would be as follows: To keep a dairy of not less than 12 good cows as a sort of foundation for his farm operations; associated with the dairy calves, pigs and all the poultry which can be profitably handled; or, assuming that sheep and their products will maintain present prices, he might safely, if he takes to sheep, put 100 good ewes on such a farm in place of the dairy, but with the sheep he will not be able to succeed so well with his pigs for lack of milk to raise them on. We would not advise such a purchase of land with a view to grain raising and selling, and think, attempted on this line, failure would result. Land bought on such terms must be worked for better than average returns from farm lands. Assuming that the gross average return per acre for land lying in the corn belt is not over $10 per acre or $800 for an 80 acre farm, it will be seen at once that when the interest charge, taxes and living expenses are deducted therefrom it will leave but little to be applied upon the principal of the debt. So in some way our young friend has got to get from $15 to $20 per acre annual income from his land if he hopes to ever get out of debt. This he may do with stock, but not by selling grain. The above is a fair and conservative statement of the situation.