FARM TENANCY 97 



he is willing to make investments to that end, but he does not want to lose 

 the investment in the event of leaving the farm. In America we have hardh^ 

 reached the point of taking such matters into consideration. First, the land- 

 lord usually owns the farm but a decade or two, and the soil will not be greatly 

 depleted in so short a time. Secondly, the tenant who is to stay but a 

 quarter of a decade can hardly take any profound interest in building up 

 the soil. Thus the arrangement which most often obtains impels neither 

 landlord nor tenant to take a great deal of interest in permanent agriculture. 

 The landlord expects to sell the land ; the tenant expects to leave it. Very 

 little is invested in fertilizers throughout the grain belt ; the tenant very 

 rarely puts any sort of improvement upon the land. Hence, there is but 

 Httle over which to debate concerning rights when the farm changes hands. 



It cannot be held that the fertility is being maintained on the great ma- 

 jority of rented farms. In the very best parts of the country the contrary is 

 the case. True, the census reports show that tenants raise about as much 

 grain per acre as is raised by the owners. This is accounted for in part by 

 the fact that the tenant farms are not a separate group always rented, as 

 distinguished from another group always operated by owner?. There is a 

 good deal of interchange. But after all, the fact that the tenants raise about 

 as much produce per acre as the owners proves too much. The tenant 

 sells a large part of his produce in the bulky form of field crops, and tliis in 

 itself must eventually result in soil depletion, The tenant has decidedly less 

 interest in soil maintenance than has the landlord, and the landlord's in- 

 terest under present conditions is little enough. When stable values elimi- 

 nate the speculator, and when few farmers can retire on the strength of unearn- 

 ed increment gains, then we shall have a class of landlords who take a 

 more fundamental interest in the soil and likewise a class of tenants who 

 can afford to co-operate in the up-building of better farming. 



The laws at present do not protect the tenant in his right to improve- 

 ments. On the other hand it is a rare thing for the tenant to wish to make 

 improvements. He may complain because improvements are inadequate, 

 he ma}^ urge the landlord to improve; more likely he will move to another 

 farm if conditions are found to be to bad. But that he should put improve- 

 ments of anj' sort on the farm will seldom occur to an American tenant. 

 Should laws be made protecting the tenant in this right, it is more than Ukely 

 that gradually tenants would begin a new regime of land improvement, but 

 it would never progress far while the tenure is, on an average, so short. 



§ 5. Tenancy and marketing problems. 



One of the worst of the tenant evils is the helpless condition in which the 

 tenant is placed with respect to marketing. It is folly to ])roceed with pro- 

 cesses leading always to greater production without taking the marketing 

 possibilities into account. The tenant is a poor bargainer in the market be- 



