FORMS OF LAND TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES 301 



The two-thirds system. Somewhat similar to the upland 

 cropping system is a system found here and there throughout 

 the northern part of the United States which may be called the 

 two-thirds system. Under this system the landlord furnishes 

 everything but the labor and receives two-thirds of the proceeds, 

 while the tenant, or share hand, as he is more properly called, 

 furnishes all the man labor and receives one-third of the pro- 

 ceeds of the farm. While this system is found widely scattered, 

 it is not believed to be very common. 



Cash tenancy. In 1910 there were only about half as 

 many cash tenants as share tenants in the United States. 

 While cash tenancy is common in the Corn Belt it is most com- 

 mon in certain parts of the Cotton Belt. Cash tenancy and negro 

 tenancy are found in the same regions. In the Cotton Belt of 

 Texas and in the northern part of Georgia, where white 

 tenants prevail, share tenancy is dominant. When it is further 

 noted that most of the so-called cash rent among negroes is 

 paid in the form of a fixed amount of cotton without regard 

 to its cash value, it will become evident that actual cash rent 

 is a minor form of tenancy in the United States at the present 

 time. 



Landlords who live too far from their land or are too busy to 

 give it the needed supervision for making share tenancy a suc- 

 cess, usually prefer to let their farms for a cash rent. It is 

 claimed by many landlords that the tenants devote much greater 

 care to their farming under the cash system of letting land. 

 The feeling that every extra bushel of grain and every extra 

 fork of hay is all his own will naturally make the tenant more 

 painstaking than he would be if only a part of these products 

 were to be added to his own profits. 



This desire to obtain as large a return as possible is, at the 

 same time, the greatest source of trouble in adjusting the rela- 

 tions between landlords and tenants. The tenant who has a 

 contract for but one year is inclined to look too strictly to 

 securing as large a profit as possible for that one year, without 

 any regard to the future. As a result of this short-sighted 

 economy, too large a proportion of the land is often devoted 



