544 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



apparently toward more tenancy in the greater portion of the 

 upper Mississippi Valley, by far the most important agricultural 

 area of the North. This tendency toward slow but certain increase 

 is offset for the present, partly by the decreases in the East 

 where cheaper land and specialized farming promote ownership, 

 and partly by the peculiar conditions of the Western division of 

 states, where both specialized agriculture and the public domain 

 are factors in keeping the proportion of ownership high and that 

 of tenancy low. No type of farm is immune from tenancy infec- 

 tion, though a few types are nearly so, while, on the other hand, 

 certain types are especially susceptible. The change, so far as the 

 great body of farms in the North is concerned, is imminent, not- 

 withstanding the apparent respite in the advance. Yet it remains 

 true that the increase in the proportion of rented farms for the 

 United States as a whole, from 35.3 per cent in 1900 to 37 per 

 cent in 19 10, is due chiefly to the relative increase of farms 

 of this class in the South, where the problem is an essentially 

 different one. 



Although there are many tenants in the United States, there is, 

 outside of the colored tenants of the South, no tenant class. The 

 tenants are young men who turn to this way of getting a start in 

 the business of farming. In almost all cases the beginning is 

 made in the hope of becoming a farm owner within a compara- 

 tively few years. That hope, though frequently long deferred, is 

 eventually realized in the greater number of cases. For example, 

 the census of 1900 shows that between the ages of 25 to 34 

 more farmers were tenants than farm owners. But the change in 

 form of ownership begins at once after the age of 34, and for the 

 higher-age groups owners are more numerous than tenants. At 

 the age of 65 years or over, owners are more than five and a half 

 times as numerous. There has been much dispute as to whether 

 or not tenancy is a step toward ownership, but the case does not 

 seem open to argument. Tenancy is a means of getting a foot- 

 hold and makes possible the ultimate ownership of land. The 

 only question an open one is whether it is the best means 

 of accomplishing the result. 



