666 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



them in with the farms operated by owners is not great. There was 

 no section in which managed farms constituted more than 3 per cent 

 of all farms in 1910. For some purposes it is desirable to regard the 

 farms of part owners as not essentially different from the farms of 

 owners proper. In 1900 the farms of part owners contained, on the 

 average, nearly 5 acres more of owned land than the average farm 

 entirely owned by the operator. The part owners constituted 9 . 3 

 per cent of all farm operators in 1910. 



The tenure statistics based on farms afford a good idea of the 

 numbers of the various kinds of operators. Tenure data based on 

 acreage, however, give some slightly different impressions. The 

 cause of the variations is the fact that farms differ in size between 

 various tenures and sections. 



The average acreage of all farms declined from 146 . 2 in 1900 to 

 138. i in 1910. Only the farms of the North Central states showed 

 a tendency to increase in size. The divisions where small farms pre- 

 vailed in 1900 underwent a still further reduction in the size of operat- 

 ing units by 1910. 



In the northeast quarter of the country and' in the Mountain and 

 Pacific divisions, on the other hand, the size of tenant farms was 

 greater than that of the farms operated by the owners. As a rule, 

 however, the tenants operated farms less than two-thirds as large as 

 those operated by the owners. In the South Central states the tenant 

 farms were between a third and a half as large, on the average, as the 

 farms of owners. 



The farms of part owners were approximately twice as large as 

 those of owners proper in 1900, but fell off nearly 20 per cent by 1910, 

 while the farms of owners proper underwent a slight increase during 

 that period. The enormous farms of managers were in the territory 

 west of the Mississippi River, where the farms of all tenures, except 

 tenants in the West South Central states, were much above the 

 general average in size. 



On the basis of farms, tenancy was most marked in the Southern 

 states. The number of tenant farms and the percentage of farms 

 operated by tenants in the states of those divisions has been so great 

 and increasing so rapidly as to give more or less alarm to some students 

 of the situation. When, however, the statistics of tenure are placed 

 on the basis of acreage, as in the second table, the percentage of 

 tenancy in the South loses much of its alarming magnitude. This is 

 due to the small size of the tenant farms in that region. The social 



