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AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



indebtedness representing 27.3 per cent of the value of the farms. 

 Only about 40 per cent of the farm land was operated by owners clear 

 of mortgage encumbrance. 



212. THE BRIGHT SIDE OF TENANCY STATISTICS 1 

 BY ERNEST LUDLOW BOGART 



The rise in the percentage of farm tenancy hi the United States 

 from 25.5 in 1880 to 28.4 in 1890 and 35.3 in 1900 has caused fear 

 to be expressed on every hand, that our democratic conditions of land 

 ownership are disappearing, and that methods of large-scale produc- 

 tion in agriculture are crushing out the small independent farmer. 

 It has been taken for granted generally that the increase of tenants 

 was at the expense of owners and that such a tendency indicated 

 movement toward Old World conditions of land tenure. Such alarm- 

 ist statements rest upon a superficial analysis of the facts, and, 

 properly interpreted, the statistics of farm tenure in the United States 

 evidence a very healthy development and give bright promise for the 

 future. 



Turning to the facts in the matter, we find that of every 1,000 

 males engaged in agriculture the distribution was as follows: 



This third group comprises the male members of the farmer's 

 family and his hired laborers. The. gain in the number of farm 

 tenants has evidently been due to the large number of recruits from 

 the class of farm laborers and farmers' sons, rather than to a decline 

 in farm owners. Again, in each decade since 1870 the increase in the 

 number of farms has been more rapid than that of the male population 

 engaged in agriculture. Since the farms have increased faster than 

 the rural population, the increased number of farm operators must 

 have been drawn from the agricultural population itself and not from 

 outside sources. Now the only class not already operating farms who 

 could take up the new farms are the laborers or young men. So we 



1 Adapted from Journal of Political Economy, XVI (April, 1908), 201-3, " 



