FARM TENANCY 95 



duce for the market within a few months, appeal strongly to the man who 

 can command relatively more labour than capital. 



The northern tenant is a grain producer and grain seller. He produces 

 more grain of every kind than is produced by the landowning farmer. This 

 means that the tenant raises less of the crops vised for feeding young stock, 

 such as hay and pasture crops. The grain which he raises has two main mar- 

 kets. One market is the city ; the other is the neighbouring farmer who feeds 

 stock, feeds more grain than he can raise. 



The tenant does not go extensively into such business as dairying 

 and for very obvious and important reasons. He must have, in order to 

 do dair3-ing successfully, well equipped barns, milk house, fences and the 

 like. The landlord does not care to furnish facilities of this kind, especially 

 the landlord who holds the farm mainly for speculation. Or again the land- 

 lord who lives at a distance from the farm hesistates to put up man}^ improve- 

 ments of this kind because of the rapid deterioration in careless hands, and 

 many tenants are careless with property which is not their own. Another 

 reason why tenants do not care especially to go into a business like dairying 

 is because it makes it much harder to move and adjust themselves to farms, 

 barns, and surroundings, such as they are likely to find in another neigh- 

 bourhood. By moving they may not only be obliged to put up with equip- 

 ment less adequate, but they may, by going ten miles, get away from market- 

 ing opportunities, such as milk routes, creameries, or cheese factories. 

 The tenant is not a cattle feeder because of lack of capital required in hand- 

 ling the business, and lack of equipment for handling the cattle and the 

 feed. 



The tenant seldom goes into specialized farming such as fruit growing. 

 Fruit growing is a continuous process extending over some years. The ten- 

 ant has no security of tenure such as to warrant investment in trees, shrubs 

 and labour such as fruit growing requires. Neither does he have charac- 

 ter, habits and skill so developed as to make it desirable to lease him a 

 fruit farm which has already been put into shape. The chances are that 

 he will be much more interested in the crop in sight than in subsequent 

 harvests. Only two to four per cent, of the citrus fruits are grown by ten- 

 ants and an unimportant part of the commercially grown apples are so pro- 

 duced. vSpecialized farming, such as tobacco or vegetable growing, lends 

 itself very well to tenant conditions, since these crops require little equip- 

 ment, and but few months. 



vSumming up the question of the relation of type of agriculture to 

 tenancy, it appears that the tenant is an exploiter of the soil. He does a 

 hand-to-mouth business, and not much may be expected of the farmer 

 whose interests in the farm begin and end within a space of two or three 

 years. 



Relative Profits Made by Tenants and Landoietning Farmers. 



It is usually taken for granted that tenants are poor. As shown above 

 they have not accumulated a great deal of property from their own opera- 

 tions. Not a great many young farmers inherit a fortune, and even should 



