114 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



periodic rest by laying it down to pasturage. The same prin- 

 ciples will apply and the same predictions may be ventured with 

 respect to wool and mutton as with respect to beef and wheat. 



With the relative decline in importance of such products of 

 extensive culture as wheat, beef, wool, mutton, etc., will doubt- 

 less come an increase in the relative importance of our two 

 great crops which lend themselves somewhat better to intensive 

 culture, namely, corn and cotton. Still greater relative increase, 

 however, is likely to take place in the growth of fruits and 

 vegetables, which require still more intensive culture. 



Growth of tenancy. The characteristic system of land ten- 

 ure among American farmers has been that of ownership. Out- 

 side of the older cotton states, the great majority of the men 

 who have worked the farms have also owned them. This has 

 been a natural result of two factors working together, namely, 

 cheap land and dear labor. So long as there was government 

 land to be had, the way was open from the position of farm 

 hand to that of farm owner to any one who cared to take the 

 trouble to go West and take a claim. Even in the older states, 

 where there was no government land to be had, it was not 

 difficult for a farm hand to become a farm owner. His wages 

 being high as compared with the wages in the Old World, it 

 was not difficult for him to save. Both the rent and the price 

 of land being low, it was easy for any man who had saved up 

 a few hundred dollars to become an independent farmer, first 

 on rented land and afterwards on land of his own. Already, 

 however, a change is becoming perceptible, and the number of 

 tenant farmers is increasing in comparison with farm owners. 

 This is a natural result of the rise in the price of land, which 

 followed the exhaustion of the supply of public land and the 

 increase in the population. As the price of land becomes 

 higher and higher it will become more and more difficult for the 

 man who starts with nothing but his hands to become a farmer. 



