the end of 1883, its loans to the
landed proprietors amounted only to 626,000l.

In 1852, however, the State had come again to the assistance of the
landowners for the extinction of private mortgages and the consolidation
of old debts by the creation of a special 'State Mortgage Bank,' with an
original capital of 291,000l., increased by successive issues of bonds
representing advances on the security of real property, bearing interest
at the rate of 4 per cent, (at present 4-1/2 per cent.), and repayable
by drawings over a period of thirty years. The amount of the bonds
issued up to 1884 was about 3,812,000l., and in 1878 about
three-quarters of the bonds were held in the country itself, their
market value being still almost at par.

It is principally into this Bank that the yeomen farmers have been
dipping their estates at a rapidly increasing rate. Thus, while the
loans on the security of real property in rural districts averaged
57,500l. per annum between 1853 and 1855, and 220,600l. between 1876 and
1880, the advances made in 1883 amounted to 396,500l. At the end of that
year the balance of outstanding loans had reached the sum of
3,752,000l., of which about 77 per cent., or 2,889,000l., represented
advances in rural districts, the remaining 23 per cent, having been
borrowed in towns. The interest payable on those loans is respectively
4-1/4 and 4-3/4 per cent., according to whether the borrowers have been
supplied with bonds bearing interest at the rate of 4 or 4-1/2 per cent.
per annum; and 3 per cent. of the capital is repayable per annum until
the extinction of the debt over a period of thirty years.

There is a third public source available to the landed proprietors for
loans on mortgages and on bonds or bills, namely the Savings Banks. In
1884, the savings-banks, in rural districts alone, held in 'mortgage
bonds' and in 'bonds and bills' a sum of about 3,553,000l.; but in what
proportion that debt was incurred by local traders and by farmers, it is
impossible to say. It is, however, clear that the yeomen farmers have
benefited largely by the deposits made in those banks by the
comparatively few who have been able to accumulate, instead of
borrowing, money. Thus, the Prefect of Hedemarken reports that, 'while
large amounts, realized by the sale of timber, were deposited in the
savings-banks, extensive loans were made by those establishments to
persons in less favourable circumstances,' and that 'the savings-b