AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



this could happen without a single farmer becom- 

 ing bankrupt and losing his farm. 



The decline in the percentage of landowning 

 farmers is due largely to the fact that a decreas- 

 ing percentage of the succeeding generations of 

 young farmers are able to acquire land. This is 

 shown in the following table : 



TABLE 10. PERCENTAGE OF PERSONS OWNING AND HIRING 

 FARM HoMES. 1 



1890 igoo 



Owned Hired Owned Hired 



Under 25 years 32.6 67.4 27.8 72.2 



25 to 34 years 49.8 50.2 45-3 54-7 



35 to 44 years 64.0 36.0 64.4 35.6 



45 to 54 years 72.3 27.7 70.7 29.3 



55 years and over 82.2 17.8 81.4 18.6 



This table indicates that nearly three-fourths of 

 the farmers under twenty-five years of age are 

 tenants ; that the percentage of tenant farmers de- 

 clines, and the percentage of landowning farmers 

 increases, as we pass from the younger to the 

 older age periods, until less than a fifth of the 

 farmers who are fifty-five years of age and over 

 are tenants. 



Statistics of this kind were first collected in 

 1890, and while they showed the status at that 

 time and suggested a movement from tenancy to 

 landownership, they did not prove the existence 

 of such a movement. By comparing the figures 

 for 1890 with those for 1900, this movement is 



1 Twelfth Census, Vol. II, p. ccxi. 

 242 



