COOPERATIVE AGRICULTURE IN FLORIDA 83

is 4 per cent. Partial or full repayment is permitted at
any time.
 The security required is a farming unit of sufficient
size and earning power to meet expenses, including main-
tenance, insurance, taxes, living costs, and installments
on the loan. Loans are based on the normal value of the
farm and limited to 65 per cent of this value. Loans are
also made on soundly managed farm woodlands and
"forest farms."
 Farmer-members of local national farm loan associa-
tions, through which long-term land bank loans are made,
increased their investment in these cooperative credit
associations more than $5.7 million in the year ended
June 30, 1954, Thomas A. Maxwell, Jr., Director of Land
Bank Service of the Farm Credit Administration, an-
nounced recently.
 At June 30, 1954, 323,000 farmer-members had in-
vested S75.7 million in stock in these cooperatively owned
and operated associations compared with $70 million a
year ago. Each farmer obtaining a land bank loan
through a local national farm loan association buys stock
in the association equal to 5 percent of his loan.
 Each farmer-borrower becomes a member of the as-
sociation and has a vote in determining the management
of the association.
 Farmer-members of national farm loan associations
received $3.8 million in dividends on the stock they own
in these local associations during this year, Maxwell
announced.
 About 1,100 farm loan associations serve every agri-
cultural county m the country. More than 300,000 farm-
ers through them are using $1 2 billion in farm mortgage
land bank loans.
 "Farmers are finding it necessary to cut costs wher-
ever possible. By reducing interest costs these dividends
help to increase net farm income," Maxwell pointed out.