The Life of the Tenant Classes 8i 



The share tenant, however, in using the white man's mule 

 or horse, secures the labor of a more valuable animal. The 

 Yazoo-Mississippi study indicated that the average value of 

 mules used was: on share tenant farms, $187; on share 

 renters (third and fourth) farms, $147; on cash renters 

 farms, $150. Owners were not studied in this area. In 

 Georgia, the census 13 figures show that the average value 

 of the horse or mule used by owners was $128, by cash 

 tenants, $137, and by share tenants was $157. 



Because he uses fewer animals per farm and more valu- 

 able animals the share tenant cultivates more per mule. Re- 

 duced to a ratio the census figures indicate that on the farms 

 of Negro farmers in the State as a whole the acreage in 

 cotton and corn per work animal was: for owners, 19.5, 

 for cash tenants, 27.7, and for share tenants, 32.3. 



Co-operation among independent owners and cash tenants 

 along the lines of the agricultural communities of Europe 

 would give them the same advantages in conserving imple- 

 ments and animal power that the share tenant has. The 

 "latifondia," or collective leases of Sicily and some "co- 

 operatives" of France are nothing more than groups of 

 independent farmers which substitute a co-operative associ- 

 ation for a landlord. The association performs the func- 

 tions performed by the landlord of a plantation. It super- 

 vises the purchase and co-operative use of fertilizers, seeds, 

 animals and machinery. 



Both white and colored independent farmers in the South 

 have a long distance to go before such co-operation can 

 be brought about. There is no more intense individualist 

 than the small farmer, and much of this individualism is re- 

 flected in the independent Negro owners and renters. In- 

 dividual opinions as to time of planting, quality of seed, ex- 

 tent of fertilization and use of work animals are still too 

 divergent to allow an association to run smoothly. The fact 



13 Negro Population in the U. S. opp. cite, Tables 69 and 73. 



