8 7 ] THE SYSTEMS OF FARMING 87 



ist in the state two other arrangements not differing in 

 essence but unlike in an important particular. In the 

 one, the renter makes an annual cash payment of so 

 much per acre or per farm for the use of the land and 

 improvements thereon. In the other, instead of a money 

 rent, the tenant agrees to pay a definite amount of the 

 produce for the use of the land and improvements. 



The money rent is of course the most flexible and 

 most highly wrought of all forms of tenancy. Compe- 

 tition in such cases can the more easily adjust the rent to 

 the varying degrees of soil fertility. The tenant is free 

 to use the land for any crops he may care to grow. The 

 lease may be for one acre or for hundreds of acres; it 

 may be for one year or for a period of years. The tenant 

 is the managing entrepreneur and the capitalist, except 

 in so far as the landlord, through furnishing land, is also 

 capitalist. All risks of crop failure and the like rest in 

 the first instance upon the tenant. As yet this is the 

 least used of all forms of land tenure in Georgia. 



Under the other plan, as was said above, the tenant 

 pays the landlord a stipulated amount of the product. 

 It differs, therefore, from the share systems, in that, 

 according to the latter arrangements, a definite part of 

 the product is turned over to the landlord. In Georgia 

 the plan under consideration is usually called the "stand- 

 ing rent" system and, as indicated above, it has a much 

 wider use than the money rent plan. In the region of 

 its greatest prevalence the rent contract usually calls for a 

 definite amount of cotton. A " one-horse " farm of about 

 thirty acres usually rents for from 1,000 to 1,500 pounds 

 of lint cotton — the amount varying according to the fer- 

 tility and situation of the land and the price of cotton. 1 



1 Testimony before the Industrial Commission indicated that the rent 

 is usually from 500 to 1000 pounds of cotton. Report of the Industrial 

 Commission, vol. x, p. 46. 



