NOTICES REI.ATIXG TO AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY INT GENERAL 87 



farming by tenant operators is chiefly governed by the real value of the 

 shares of the owners and tenants in the surplus of operation. Tenancy 

 forms a sort of cumulative index of the effectiveness of the desire of the 

 owners to escape the operation of their land, and of the ineffectiveness of 

 the desire of tenants to become owners. 



" Share tenancy has been more prevalent than cash tenancy, though 

 cash tenancy predominates in the northern part of the State and has been 

 more characteristic of tenants who were advanced in years and who were 

 operating farms whose owners were resident at a considerable distance from 

 their farms... 



" The farms of no single form of tenure can be held to be superior in 

 all ways. Managed farms had the highest value in buildings and live stock 

 per acre, and farm? of owners were characterized by the highest value of 

 implements and machinery per acre. In values of dom.estic animals the 

 farms of tenants were below the average when either the total value or the 

 value per head is considered. The farms of tenants were largely devoted 

 ^o the production of the money crops. This was particularly true of share 

 tenant farms. Yields Were superior in the case of farms operated b}' ma- 

 nagers and by cash tenants... 



" It was shown bj' the age statistics that young operators were more 

 generally characterized by tenancy- especiallj^ on the share basis, and that 

 young owners were most heavily encumbered. Advancing years tended 

 to replace share with ca^ tenancy, tenancy with ownership, and encum- 

 brance with freedom from m ortgage debt. The latest census data, however, 

 indicate that an influence is at work restraining this movement... 



" Farming efficiency in the future will probabl}'' consist to a greater 

 extent in the abilit}'^ to increase net profits through cooperative dealing with 

 the market. The efficiency test must, therefore, rule more strongly against 

 operators of the tenures whose characteristics are opposed to successful 

 co-operative efforts on their part. 



" It is not necessarj^ however, that the f flrmers of other tenures operate 

 as efficiently as the owners themselves would operate. If owners prefer to 

 have their land operated by others than themselves, and if their holdings 

 are sufficientl}'' large, the}'' ma}'' content themselves with the financial dis- 

 advantage resulting from their refusal to operate their own land... 



" The test of productive efficiency may be somewhat slow in acting 

 and costly but it bids fair in the long run to penalize unsound farming re- 

 gardless of the tenure of the operators, and to guarantee, therefore, the 

 survival of the best forms of tenure and of the best individual operators ". 



RUGGERI ALFREDO, gerente responsable. 



