THE FARM LAND 59 



land speculators, or banks, or insurance companies. At any 

 rate, they are mostly absentee owners who cannot give per' 

 sonal supervision to their farms, and who often have little in' 

 terest in the welfare of the soil. The combination of absentee 

 ownership and tenancy is a powerful ally of soil destruction; 

 it is a powerful ally also of poverty and discontent. 



There is one bright spot in this otherwise dark picture of 

 farm tenancy and absentee ownership in the United States. 

 About one fifth of all farmers who are tenants lease their land 

 from relatives. This means that they have an interest in main 

 taining the fertility of the soil. Therefore, "relative" tenants 

 are likely to be in a more secure and prosperous condition than 

 other types of tenants. 



Not all farmers who have for one reason or another failed 

 to succeed have become tenants. Many of them have held on 

 to their land, trying to scratch some sort of living from it. And 

 every year, because they could not afford fertiliser or other 

 soil'saving practices, the land has become poorer. Much good 

 land has been ruined by carelessness, ignorance, or greed. This 

 land, as its production sinks below a point where it will sup' 

 port a family decently, is called submarginal land. The chief 

 effect of sub-marginal land is that it makes sub'marginal people, 

 that is, people who barely manage to keep body and soul to' 

 gether. 



ONE'CROP FARMING AND THE SOIL 



One of the underlying causes of the rapid growth of sub' 

 marginal land in the United States is the one'crop system. This 

 system encouraged the mining of soil to get cash to pay for ma' 

 chinery, taxes, and 'higher land values. The one'crop system 

 is the basis of "commercial agriculture." In very simple terms, 

 it works something like this. In the South, the chief one'crop 

 area, this system of agriculture has been going on for genera' 

 tions. Cotton is a crop that earns a cash income. As cotton 



