Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 1 · column 5 of 7 · from the scan, no model involved
Farmers likewise were estimated to have spent about a billion dollars on, additions and betterments to their homes and farm buildings in 1948, while the net Value of their household furnishings and euipment increased approximately $600 millions for the year.
A byproduct of this spending was an increase of over $2 billions in farmers’ aggregate debts in 1948 to a total of $11.2 billions at the beginning of this year. However, over half this increase represented price support loans of the Commodity CTedit Corporation', and thus represents a .different type of debt than mortgages, trade credit, etc. A»»et-Debt Ratio High
Despite the drop in cash assets and rise in debt, farmers as a whole remained financially strong. One important indication is that on January 1 this year farmers had in the aggregate $1.77 in cash for every dollar they owed. This was lower than the 1947 ratio of $2.21 in cash assets for every dollar of debt, but it was in marked contrast with the situation at the beginning of 1940 when farmers in the aggregate had only 41 cents in cash for every dollar they owed.
Furthermore, farmers’ investments in cooperatives topped $2 billions at the beginning of 1949, a rise of $178 millions over the * year before and two and onehalf times the total on January 1, 1940.
78.1%