424 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



per cent, per annum increase in price would continue. One re- 

 sult of this was an enormous increase in tenancy, until about 

 37!/2 per cent, of the tillable lands of the United States was 

 farmed lay tenants. In the corn belt from 40 to 50 per cent, of 

 the land is farmed by tenants, and in the cotton belt from 50 to 

 70 per cent. 



Meanwhile the use of improved machinery and of horse power 

 instead of man power tended to increase the size of farms and 

 to decrease the population per square mile. A recent investiga- 

 tion by the Iowa Agricultural Department shows that, while the 

 increase in the size of farms that are farmed by their owners is 

 less than 4 per cent., the increase in the size of those farmed by 

 tenants is 16 per cent. It shows further that in sections in which 

 land is bought for speculation tenancy has increased very rapidly. 

 We have three main classes of landlords: retired farmers, capi- 

 talists, and speculators, or speculating capitalists ; and the lands 

 of all these classes are necessarily farmed by tenants. 



Inasmuch as we have not yet really begun to farm in the West, 

 but are simply mining our soil and selling its fertility ( at present 

 at a profit), the tenure of the tenant is mainly for one year; this 

 condition makes about 45 per cent, of the population of the open 

 country in Iowa more or less unstable. The tenant who goes into 

 a new community for a year does not usually align himself with a 

 church unless he is a man of very positive religious convictions. 

 Neither does the church look upon the tenant as anything more 

 than a pilgrim and a stranger, and hence it is apt to think it not 

 worth while to gather him into the fold. 



Another influence is powerfully effective. Members of 

 churches who bought land, especially in the corn belt, at from 

 $25 to $50 an acre thirty years ago, could not resist the tempta- 

 tion to harvest the unearned increment and invest it in the newer 

 lands of the spring wheat belt, or the plains, or the Northwest. 

 They moved to the new country, taking their families with them. 

 This has decreased the financial ability of the congregation of 

 the country church, has reduced the salary of the minister to the 

 starvation point, or has perhaps compelled the congregation to 

 have preaching for but one-half or one-third of the time, and in 

 certain sections, for only one-fourth of the time. This deprives 

 the community of the pastoral labor and the example of a Chris- 



