50 Negro Migration 



The growth of tenancy is indicated by the following 

 figures from the successive censuses of Agriculture : 14 



It thus appears that, during the first fifteen years after 

 emancipation, i. e. 1865-1880, the tenant system had gotten 

 well under way. By 1880 there had been a change from an 

 ante-bellum system, in which practically all farms were op- 

 erated on a large scale by owners, to a system under which 

 only 55.2 per cent of the farms were operated *by owners. 

 Cash tenancy had, however, made no great progress by 

 1880, or even as late as 1890. According to the above 

 table, only 29,413, or 17.2 per cent of the total farms were 

 operated by cash tenants in 1890. Since 1880, however, 

 both cash and share tenancy have been increasing at a 

 greater rate than the ownership. From 1880 to 1910 there 

 was an increase of 152,401 farms in the State. Of this 

 increase only 23,596 was in new owner operated farms while 

 63,830 was in cash tenant farms and 64,975 in share tenant 

 farms. The rate of increase has been 31.0 among owners, 

 148.9 among share tenants and 342.9 among renters or cash 

 tenants. This greater rate of increase in the tenant groups and 

 especially in the group of renters has changed the distribu- 

 tion of farms so that only one-third of all farms were oper- 

 ated by owners in 1910, whereas over one-half were oper- 

 ated by owners in 1880. On account of the tremendous rate of 

 increase of farms operated by cash tenants, 28.3 per cent of 

 all farms were operated by this group in 1910 as against 

 13.4 per cent in 1880. In other words, all classes of farms 

 have increased rapidly in the past 30 years. The rate of 

 increase has been fastest in the cash tenant group, next in 

 the share tenant group, and while the owners have increased 

 slightly in numbers, their rate of increase has been far ex- 

 ceeded by the tenant classes. This differing rate of in- 

 crease in the classes holds good throughout the period. 



14 United States Census of Agriculture, Vol. V., p. 126. Cen- 

 sus figures do not seperate farms by tenure before 1880. 



