reassuring that only 17 banks thought the "age" was very significant (a
primary or secondary choice) in assessing loan application.
 The question asking bankers to rank individual records in order of
importance produced the widest variety of responses of any in the survey.
(As with any ranking question, it was possible to give equal choices to any
item.) The majority (93 banks) selected the balance sheet as their first
choice, though 44 rated it third or lower. Then came the income statement
which was the first or second selection of 131 banks. Cash flow records
followed, though it was almost equally selected as either the first, second,
third, or fourth choice of 140 banks. Finally, the.respondents agreed in
making living expense records their last selection, with 63 banks placing it
last.
 In assessing loan requests, 97 out of 152 banks thought that three
years historical records were sufficient, though the answers ranged from
two to ten years. Consequently, it was surprising that only 60% thought
that budgeting the farm business was essential, though it was somewhat re-
assuring that only eight bankers did not find budgeting particularly useful.


 PART III
 The Future Role of Commercial Banks in Agriculture
 This part of the survey tried to assess the future role of Florida's
commercial banks in short term agricultural lending. The two main questions
are:
Question 1. Which category best represents your estimate of future short
 term lending (in money terms) by your bank to farmers, say,
 five years from now?

 Rank Number Percent

Much more lending than now 3 28 15
More lending than now 2 63 34
About the same 1 73 40
Somewhat less than now 4 12 6
Much less than now 5 9 5
No Answer 95


 The answers to this question suggest that banks are not unanimous in
their future short term loan commitments to agriculture. The majority of
banks decided that they would be lending no more to agriculture than they
are now. As their present proportion of total short term loans going to