If the inquiry means, are loans made to individuals or corporations
upon farms or city property better investments than municipal
bonds or railroad bonds, I should say that such mortgages are
probably no better security than well secured railway bonds or
municipal bonds. I need not go over again the different kinds of
security, or the nature of a bond and how secured. Nearly all of
the bonds are subject to market fluctuations to a greater or less
extent, but a bond bought for an investment as this company
buys them, is not affected by a fluctuating market, for the reason
that we do not buy bonds to sell again. A bond bought at a certain
price today is bought upon a basis to yield a certain rate of inter-
est to maturity, so that the company knows exactly what the
investment will yield when it purchases a bond.
