380 Repoet of Farmers' Institutes 



Here are some figures which to my mind are very significant : 

 As shown by the last census there were 15,824,840 acres operated 

 by owners; by managers, 838,476 acres — nearly nineteen times 

 as many owners as managers. In 1900, there were 6,119,706 

 acres occupied by tenants; in 1910, 5,367,051 acres — a decrease 

 in acres of 752,655. Why are these figures significant? Because 

 they show that more than four-fifths of New York acres are 

 farmed by owners rather than managers, and that in the last ten 

 years three quarters of a million acres less are farmed by tenants 

 than in the previous decade. With all respect to the many excellent 

 managers and the large number of good tenant farmers, the fact 

 is patent that a system of second-hand, absent-ownership farming 

 means a decline in production and consequently in land values, 

 and, as a further consequence, in citizenship — more deplorable 

 than either. There can be no really successful agriculture without 

 permanency on the land. The tenant system of Great Britain, 

 which some of you may cite to refute my statement, proves it, 

 for that system is based on leases descending from father to son — 

 from generation to generation — and it recognizes permanent 

 improvement. Where the reverse is true, agricultural conditions 

 are most deplorable. 



A few years ago I sent out a questionnaire over the state, asking 

 among other things as to the number of rented farms. I found 

 that with one exception the counties with the largest proportion of 

 tenants were the least prosperous. The longer the system had 

 been in vogue, the smaller the production and the lower the 

 standard of citizenship. The system as usually followed results 

 in skinning the land, the transient population having no interest 

 beyond the present, and those long-time investments which mean 

 so much are never made. Ditches are stopped ; weeds and briers 

 come by the fence corners and gradually encroach into the field; 

 fences and buildings are not repaired; no thought exists as to 

 maintaining the productivity of the land. Then the tenant moves 

 on to repeat the process on the land of some good farmer who has 

 moved to town, and, for lack of occupation and because he has 

 carried his individualism with him, has become a -most " undesir- 

 able citizen." Such men, either owners or tenants, commit a 

 greater crime against the community than he who commits arson 



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