I 



CHAPTER V 



LAND TENURE 



Introductory. Many changes are going on in the United 

 States in respect to tenancy, mortgages, and size of farms. And yet 

 there is very little agreement as to the significance of these changes. 



This may be illustrated by a few quotations. For instance, at 

 a recent meeting of the New York State Agricultural Society, one 

 prominent gentleman spoke as follows: 



"The heavy drain upon the country for its best blood to what seemed more 

 attractive life in the city has left many fathers and mothers alone at an age 

 when they were no longer fitted to carry the burden of the farm. Hard work 

 in early life had made the day of retirement to the local town look bright. And 

 the renter took his place. Now the so-called tenant system is in the minds 

 of men a symbol of a degenerated agriculture, and I must confess that it has 

 as a rule been true. The facts are that farm rental is no more degenerate in 

 principle than the ownership of a building by one man and its occupancy by 

 another; the tenant in some way having paid the owner of the building a fan- 

 value for its use. We have deplored tenantry and prayed for the day when 

 prosperity would again come to the open country and the owner would become 

 the occupant of the land. I venture a prophecy that the millennium will never 

 come and furthermore that tenantry may increase. Tenantry leaves a bad 

 taste, not because the thing is wrong, but because it has developed through 

 unfortunate causes . . . The system of tenantry is here because the farm as 

 a business will not pay cash for the labor and leave a balance." 



The speaker is interrupted and interrogated as follows: 



" I want to ask Mr. Cook one question : Does he think that our descendants 

 will stand for a thing that his ancestors and mine left Europe because of 

 tenantry? Never, as long as we are Americans, will tenantry come into this 

 great and glorious country." 



Mr. Cook replies: 



"The trouble is, it is here now. Come out into the country and see how 

 many tenant farmers we have . . . We have tenantry, and we are going to 

 have it, and let us undertake to improve rather than destroy, as we cannot 

 get rid of it." 1 



Charles Stelzle, in reviewing the returns of the 1910 census, 

 takes this somewhat cheerful view of the situation: 



"While the population of the United States as a whole increased 21 per 

 cent during the past ten years, the rural population increased only 11.2 per 

 cent. The increase in the number of farms during the period was 10.9 per cent. 

 The value of the farm property increased 100.5 per cent, but the greater part of 

 this extraordinary increase was in the land itself, the value of which increased 



1 Bulletin 47. Proceedings of the Seventy-third Annual Meeting of the 

 N. Y. State Agricultural Society. Albany, 1913, pp. 1265-1268. 



53 



