TENANCY AND L AND O WN ERS HI P 



lation have already been divorced from the soil. 

 Tenancy is only the later form of the disease ; the 

 earlier form is the mortgage." 1 



Three sets of statistics on tenancy and land- 

 ownership, those for 1880, 1890, and 1900, are 

 now available, and a comparison of these figures 

 shows that there has been a decline in the per- 

 centage of landowning farmers in the United 

 States since 1880. The extent of this decline is 

 shown in the following table : 2 



TABLE 9. TENURE OF FARMS IN THE UNITED STATES. 



n . Percentage of Farms Operated by 



Owners Cash Tenants Share Tenants 



1880 74-5 8.0 17.5 

 1890 71.6 10.0 18.4 



1900 64.7 I3.I 22.2 



This table shows a decline of nine and eight- 

 tenths in the percentage of landowning farmers 

 during the last two decades of the Nineteenth Cen- 

 tury ; and the decline has been more rapid during 

 the decade from 1890 to 1900 than during the 

 preceding decade. 



This decline in the percentage of landowning 

 farmers does not necessarily imply, however, that 

 farmers who once owned land have lost it and 

 become tenant farmers. The ownership of land 

 is ever changing. If all farmers were to cease ac- 

 quiring the ownership of land for one generation, 

 there would be no landowning farmers left; and 



1 North American Review, Vol. 142, p. 393. 



2 Twelfth Census, Vol. V, p. Ixxvii. 



16 241 



