SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE. 251 



Share tenants, if they furnish implements, stock and feed, gener- 

 ally give the landlord from one fourth to one third of what they pro- 

 duce; if these are furnished by the landlord, he gets one half the 

 gross product. These proportions sometimes vary in different sections 

 and with different crops. It is simply what in Europe is known as 

 metayer farming. 



The status of the renting farmer and his landlord throughout the 

 United States has occasioned some anxiety for the future of the Ameri- 

 can yeomanry. In the country at large the percentage of owners is 

 appreciably larger than in the south, and both classes of tenants respect- 

 ively are appreciably smaller; for of the total 5,737,372 American 

 farmers, 54.9 per cent, own the farms they operate, as against 46.9 per 

 cent, in the south. It must be acceded in addition that the tenant sys- 

 tem in the south is much more indicative of evil consequences than in 

 other sections. In the northwest, for example, the number of 'tenants' 

 is swelled largely by the sons of aged retired farmers in whom the 

 titles still rest, and by enterprising men who have made the second 

 step in the gradation of hired laborer, tenant, owner. This is true to a 

 much less extent in the south. The tenant class there is composed 

 mainly of shiftless whites who have definitely settled into what has 

 come to be known as the 'tenant class' and of earth-butchering negroes. 

 All the alertness of a landlord close at hand, who is himself strong- 

 willed and a good farmer, is required to save land from deterioration 

 after several years under such tenancy. The safest method has been 

 found to be for the landlord to retain the right to supervise authorita- 

 tively every detail of the farming, not only by specific stipulations in 

 the contract, but continually during its execution. Absentee landlord- 

 ism in the south means, almost inevitably, land butchery. 



The Tenant's OutlooTc. 



What is the tenant's chance to attain the ideal of farm life — ■ 

 ownership of the land upon which he works? 



The southern farm tenant has the best opportunity of any renter 

 in the world to become an independent proprietor. If, under the im- 

 proved agricultural conditions which promise to continue, he does 

 not enroll himself among the owners, it will rest as a heavy indictment 

 against his worth of character. 



Last year I was driving through one of the richest agricultural 

 sections of the south. A place better fenced and kept than the ordinary 

 impressed me. 'That man was a tenant five years ago,' said my com- 

 panion. 'He made a small cash payment on that $5,000 cotton and 

 tobacco plantation; he lived hard for four or five years, and now he 

 has paid the last cent of the price.' 



A few miles farther on stood a rusty hut of doll house dimensions. 



