Marketing Problem as a Whole 65 



tact has served in itself to break up the larger farming units into farms 

 which could be handled by resident owners. Some large individual 

 acreages have been developed in the outlying districts, where water 

 rights are independent of the restrictions laid down by the Reclamation 

 Act. Records of the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association show 

 that on an ownership basis the average individual holding on the Salt 

 River Project approximates 58 acres. ]\Iany tracts are subdivided 

 among several tenants, who in turn operate these subdivisions as sepa- 

 rate units. Data compiled by the United States Reclamation Service 

 in 191 7 indicate that 4.342 farmers (both owners and tenants) oper- 

 ated 196,586 acres on the Project, or an average of 45 acres to the 

 individual. 



Thus it will be noted that individual holdings, while not extremely 

 large, are sufficient to permit general farming. Until the average hold- 

 ings fall below 40 acres, it will not be necessary to resort to specialized 

 forms of agriculture in order to provide an adequate labor return. 



Tenant farming also had a decided influence on commercial pros- 

 pects. Referring to records compiled by the United States Reclamation 

 Service, we find that, according to the 191 7 report, 41 per cent of the 

 farmers on the Salt River Project are tenants. The form of tenantry 

 varies. Some of the tenants operate on a share basis, while a large 

 number operate on a cash rental basis. The latter form was particu- 

 larly prevalent in 19 17 among the newer cotton growers and, because 

 of the prospects of large financial returns, good cotton land rented m 

 1017 at from $15 to $25 per acre, the average rental being $20. Tenant 

 farming has made it difficult to organize for commercial purposes on 

 a permanent basis. The tenant farmer who has no sure tenure natur- 

 ally does not manifest the requisite interest in building up a permanent 

 producers' organization when his membership in such an organization 

 may be short lived. Proper financing of such an organization is more 

 difficult with the tenant farmer than with the permanent land owner. 



The human factor presents one of the most difficult problems in 

 connection with the betterment of market conditions in the Salt River 

 Valley. This problem is a more or less intangible one and is not sub- 

 ject to a careful statistical analysis. At the present time individualism 

 is still the key note of communal conditions in the Valley. Many of 

 the present producers have come from other districts into the midst of 

 conditions that are more or less strange to them. As might be expected, 

 this fact has reacted adversely on any tendency toward co-operative 

 action. The primary weakness of widespread individual action in a 



