252 



AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



Thus in terms of area, tenancy has not made quite as great 

 inroads as the percentage of farms operated by tenants would 

 indicate. The increase between 1900 and 1910 is greater, how- 

 ever, in terms of improved land than in terms of farms. 



The percentage of tenancy was higher in many southern 

 states than in Illinois, but it does not necessarily follow that 

 a higher proportion of the farm land in the South was rented. 

 In the South tenant farms were usually small and owned farms 

 were generally large. This is shown in the following table : 



TABLE XVIII 



Percentage under 50 Acres of All Farms Operated by Tenants or 



by Owners 



1880 



State 



United States 

 Alabama . . 

 Georgia . . 

 Mississippi . 

 So. Carolina 

 Illinois . . 

 Indiana . . 

 Iowa . . . 

 Ohio . . . 



Owners 



22.48 



11.64 



13-94 

 20.85 

 19.79 

 26.59 

 14.38 

 30-49 



In the four corn states under consideration in this table, there 

 is no such marked difference in the proportion of rented and of 

 owned farms under fifty acres. This gives ground for the 

 belief that the percentage of the agricultural area operated by 

 tenants in the South was much smaller, in 1880, than the per- 

 centage of farms operated by tenants. 



A share of the product was the most common form of rent 

 throughout the Union in 1880, with the exception of a few 

 counties in the Cotton Belt where the rent took the form of a 

 specified amount of cotton and was counted as cash rent in the 

 census reports. Of all farms in the United States 17.52 per 

 cent were operated by share tenants, 8.04 per cent by cash 



