Excerpts: Tax delinquency of rural real estate has presented an increasingly serious problem since 1928, though, in fact, a gradual increase in the extent of the problem had been occurring before that year. For selected counties (towns in New England) throughout the country the area of land delinquent has nearly trebled since 1928 according to tabulations and estimates by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics of the United States Department of Agriculture. The acreage and the amount of taxes delinquent on the levies of 1928-1932 are shown by geographic divisions in the following table. -- Total Delinquency of Rural Real Estate Taxes in Selected Counties, Levies of 1928-1932. Tax delinquency is failure to pay taxes. Why does one fail to pay his debts, including taxes? The answer is interwoven through the whole subject of credit, or of public finance. Increased severity of collection procedure undoubtedly can be made to reduce voluntary delinquency, but it becomes apparent upon analysis that only through revision of the underlying tax system itself, to lighten the burden on real estate, can "economic" delinquency of rural real estate be reduced to reasonable proportions.