48 ANNUAL EEPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



ciently considered. The situation does not warrant a pessimistic con- 

 clusion. In the 30 years from 1880 to 1910 the number of farms in 

 the United States increased from 4,009,000 to 6,362,000, the number 

 of those owned from 2,984,000 to 4,007,000, a gain of 1,023,000, or 

 34.3 per cent, and the number operated by tenants from 1,025,000 to 

 2,355,000, a gain of 1,330,000, or 129.9 per cent. But in 1910, five- 

 eighths of the farms and 68 per cent of the acreage of all land in 

 farms were operated by owners and 65 per cent of the improved land. 

 The number of farms increased faster than the agricultural popula- 

 tion. The only class not operating farms who could take them up 

 were the younger men, and it is largely from them that the class ol 

 tenants has been recruited. 



In a recent study of the cases of 9,000 farmers, mainly in the 

 Middle Western States lying in the Mississippi Valley, it was found 

 that more than 90 per cent were brought up on farms; that 31^ per 

 cent remained on their fathers' farms until they became owners and 

 27 per cent until they became tenants, then owners ; that 13| per cent 

 passed from wage earners to ownership, skipping the tenant stage; 

 and that 18 per cent were first farm boys, then wage earners, later 

 tenants, and finally owners. It is stated, on the basis of census statis- 

 tics, that 76 per cent of the farmers under 25 years of age are tenants, 

 while the percentage falls with age, so that among those 55 years old 

 and above only 20 per cent are tenants. In the older sections of the 

 country (except in the South, which has a large negro population), 

 that is, in the New England and Middle Atlantic States, the tenant 

 farmers formed a smaller proportion in 1910 than in 1900. This is also 

 the case with the Rock}" Mountain and Pacific Divisions, where there 

 has been a relative abundance of lands. The conditions on the whole, 

 therefore, are not in the direction of deterioration but of improve- 

 ment. The process has been one of emergence of wage laborers and 

 sons of farmers first to tenancy and then to ownership. 



The legislative steps that have been taken to promote better credit 

 terms for farmers will have a tendency to hasten this process. The 

 operation of the farm-loan system, through arrangements by which 

 those who have sold lands take a second mortgage subordinate to the 

 first mortgage of the farm-land banks, carrying a relatively low rate 

 of interest, will have a beneficial influence. If further developments 

 can be made through the application of the principle of cooperation, 



