Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 56, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 March 1913 — GROWTH OF INDIANA TOLD IN STATISTICS [ARTICLE]

GROWTH OF INDIANA TOLD IN STATISTICS

Vast Wealth in Fanns and Improvements of Hoosier State and Y We Are Still Growing.

Behold, how great and how good it is to have Indiana as a home and to -be numbered among her peaceful, prosperous people. But let your Uncle- Sam quote you some facts and figures just to prove the truth of all our claims. There are 215,485 farms in Indiana, the land surface Included in farms being 21,299,823 acres. The total wealth of the state in the form of farm property is $1,809,135,000, of which 88.1 per cent is represented by lands and buildings, 2.3 per cent by implements and machinery and 9.6 per cent by live stock. The total value of all farm property in Indiana in 1850 was $165,568.172, being considerably less than one-tenth of the present valuation. In 1850 the total value of farm land and buildings in Indiana was $136,385.173, as against $1,954,275,595 shown by the census of 1910. In the same period the value of implements and machinery increased from $6,704,444 to $40,999,541, and the value of domestic amimals, poultry and bees from $22,478,555 to $173,860,101. In 1850 the average number of acres in an Indiana farm was 136.2. In 1910 the average number of acres in each farm was 98.8, a decrease of 37.4 acres. The decrease was continuous from 1850 to 1900, but especially rapid from 1850 to 1870. During the last decade, however, there was an increase of I.4jn the average acres per farm. The average value of the land and buildings of an average farm in Indiana in 1850 was $1,453, as against $7,399 in 1910. The average value of land per acre in 1850, taking the state as a whole, was $10.66, while the average of land and buildings per acre in 1910 was $74.85.

During the last decade the average value per acre of Indiana farm land and buildings has about doubled, an increase 1% times as great as that of the preeeeding half century. The value per farm of farm equipment, which includes machinery and live stock, is now more than three times as great as sixty years ago. v For the first time since the government was established the census bureau has secured information concerning the color and nativity of Indiana farmers. On that interesting point the report says: “Approximately nineteen out of twenty Indiana farmers were native whites, about one of the twenty being foreign born white. Only 805, or four-tenths of 1 per cent of all farmers were rion-white, 785 be ing negroes and twenty Indians. Of the native whites, 30.7 per cent were tenants, as compared with 15.3 per cent among foreign-born whites and 39.5 per cent among the nonwhite farmers.

“Of the total of 9,729 foreign-born white fanners in 1910, 5,563 were born in Germany, 642 in Sweden, 550 in England, 547 in Switzerland, 369 in Holland, 457 in Austria, 201 in Canada, and 166 in France.” Nearly half of the farmers of Indiana hire labor and the average amount expended by those hiring is $l7O per annum. One-fifth o:! the amount expended for labor is in the form of rent and board.