384 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



be tied right and left by the landlord's interdicts and by his 

 covenants. He cannot operate freely on his holding. As 

 owner he would quite naturally be led to take very much 

 longer views, such as could not fail to coincide with the 

 interest of the Nation. He would have no term of tenancy 

 which would come to an end. Of whatever he put into his 

 land, whether its fruit mature rapidly or tardily, he would 

 in any case be sure of a return. Accordingly his aim would 

 be, while making the land yield to the best of its possi- 

 bilities, at the same time also to improve his possession 

 and go on further improving it. Now that is precisely 

 what the Nation wants. 



We may resent having German and even French examples 

 cast in our teeth, but we meet with precisely the same con- 

 demnation of general tenancy farming and preference for 

 ownership among our cousins and kinsmen in the United 

 States. " Tenant farming is undoubtedly the greatest 

 single curse of this country," so writes Mr. Pvlelvin Traylor, 

 President of the Live Stock Exchange National Bank at 

 Chicago. Governor McGovern chimes in with this remark, 

 forming part of his annual message to the Wisconsin Legis- 

 lature : — 



" The evil effects of a general systemof tenant farming on the 

 land, to the tenant and the community in which he lives, are too 

 well known to need discussion. . . . Whatever may be done, 

 we should not fail to recognise that the increase in the proportion 

 of ' renters ' among the farmers of our state is a serious menace 

 not only to the prosperity and welfare of our rural communities 

 but also to the efficient use of the agricultural resources upon 

 which we are all dependent for our food supplies." 



Mr. B. H. Hibbard, Professor of Agricultural Economy 

 at the University of Wisconsin — which has occupied itself 

 greatly, and since a long time, with agricultural and rural 

 problem.s — distinctly terms the tenant " the weak link in 

 the chain," and points out that in the United States it is 

 tenants specifically who are found opposed to the practice 

 of Co-operation, and who support the middleman. "Wherever 

 the farming population is half tenants, it means strength 

 to the hne-elevator and all other private undertakings of 



