524 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



limit is almost $95 for Illinois. The average for the South is 

 JS 16.72, for the North ^46.26. In buildings the contrast is still 

 greater, the average value of buildings for each acre being in the 

 North $10.93, in the South $4.03. In implements and machinery 

 the North has an investment per acre two and one-half times as 

 great as has the South ; in live stock, an investment about twice 

 as great. All told, a Northern farm with its equipment is valued 

 at ;^9500 ; a Southern farm at $2900. It is to be noted, however, 

 that the recent gains in value are more rapid in the South, standing 

 1 10. 1 per cent during the past decade for the South, and 90.1 

 per cent for the North. 



Thus it is plain that the farm of the North represents a much 

 higher investment than does the farm of the South. It has been 

 shown in the previous articles of this series that with comparatively 

 few exceptions a high rate of tenancy is found in connection with 

 land high in price, and a low rate where land is low in price. Since 

 land is decidedly higher in price in the North than in the South, 

 and since the rate of tenancy in the South is nevertheless nearly 

 twice as great as in the North, there must be some influence at 

 work other than the value of land. But it was also shown in the 

 articles above referred to that a considerable number of forces 

 were at work in determining the proportion of tenancy ; only if 

 other things are equal do the value of land and the rate of tenancy 

 appear to bear a close relationship. In the South the greatest 

 factor in the tenancy problem is the negro, and in proportion to 

 the numbers of negroes the rate of tenancy rises and falls. Along 

 with this primary factor, however, the other factors seem to bring 

 about in the South the same relative results as in the North. 



The war left the Southern planter with no reliable farm labor. 

 The negroes were at hand, but authority could no longer be exer- 

 cised over them, and the payment of wages proved to be too weak 

 in its appeal to induce them to refill the places which they had 

 just vacated. The economic reconstruction of the South involved 

 the development of a system of farming for which there were no 

 precedents, at least none in America ; for it meant the use, in 

 some manner, of a million farm hands to be employed in a way 

 to which they were not accustomed. It meant that half a million 



