Often, when the mud is too deep for teams, farmers go by on horseback, with their horses' tails tied into a knot to keep them out of the mud. They have come to town to learn the price of wheat, corn or hogs, to bargain for some article of farm use, or perhaps to pay the interest on their mortgages. Many of them have not yet paid entirely for their farms, and comparatively few are free from debt in some form. Some, being ambitious to have large farms, have taken more land than they can profitably manage or pay for in a number of years, and are what is called "land poor:" others, though content with modest portions of sixty or a hundred acres, have not yet been able, by reason of poor crops, their own mismanagement or some other cause, to clear their farms of debt. They work along from year to year, supporting their families, paying the interest, and paying off the principal little by little. When the last payment is made and the mortgage released, then the owner can hold the land in spite of all other creditors. His store-bills or other debts may run up to hundreds of dollars, but his homestead cannot be taken to satisfy them by any process of law. This is the homestead law of the State. A single exception is made in favor of one creditor: the mechanic who has erected the buildings can hold what is called a mechanic's lien upon the property until his claim is satisfied. Advantage is often taken of this law for the purpose of defrauding creditors. In one instance a merchant who owned a good residence in a city and a valuable store-property, sold or transferred his residence, moved his family into the rooms above his store, and soon afterward failed. His creditors tried to get possession of his store-property, and entered suit, but the testimony proved that it was his dwelling also, and therefore exempt under the homestead law. The amount of land that can be held in this way is limited to forty acres.