5i6 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



the greater part of all farms in this section ; hence, in the pro- 

 portional distribution of these farms between owners and tenants 

 is seen the leading characteristics of tenant and landowning 

 farmers, so far as the general type of agriculture is concerned. 

 The tenant raises grain to sell ; the landowner more often raises 

 it to feed to live stock. The tenant produces but three-fourths 

 of his proportional share of hay and forage, and this corresponds 

 almost exactly to the proportion of the cattle which he owns. In 

 the ownership of sheep he is even farther behind the landown- 

 ing farmer. Yet in the case of swine he has his full quota, and 

 here is an exception to the generalization that the tenant raises 

 grain to sell ; though he does this to a great degree, he feeds a 

 great many hogs. 



The leading cereals of the North Central states are corn and 

 wheat, together constituting about four-fifths the value of all 

 cereals. The tenants grow only two-thirds of their share of the 

 v yheat , yet they exceed by one-third their proportional share of 

 the corn. In the case of wheat the conditions vary widely from 

 state to state. In several of the distinctivjely wheat-growing states 

 the tenants are growing more than their proportional share, 

 leaving them with much less in the other states. With corn 

 the conditions are more uniform, the tenant raising throughout 

 proportionally more than the landowner. The less usual crops, 

 such as vegetables, fruit, and tobacco, are grown mainly by the 

 landowning farmer. Couple with these facts of tenancy the 

 prevalence of grain-growing in general and of corn-growing in 

 particular, and the scarcity of cattle and sheep the character- 

 istics of the tenant farm itself. There is the same value in land 

 per acre, and not far from the same number of acres, but the 

 buildings are worth but five-sixths as much as on the farm occu- 

 pied by its owner. In implements and machinery the tenant has 

 a little less than his proportional share ; though this is due in 

 the main to the fact that he is less in need of such things as 

 haying tools, corn binders, or milk separators than is the land- 

 owner. Tenants are seldom handicapped by lack of implements. 

 The tenant farmer himself is much younger than the owner ; he 

 stays on the same farm not to exceed about a third as long a 



