LAND TENURE AND LAND POLICY 673 



214. WHEN TENANT FARMING IS DESIRABLE' 

 BY J. W. FROLEY' 



Speaking generally, tenant farming is not a type to be encouraged 

 in America. Nevertheless, tenant farming is here. It is a fact. 

 There is, besides, a place for tenant farming in American agriculture. 

 Cheap, fertile farms are largely a matter of the past. The homesteads 

 of the West are practically gone. If a young man desires to go into 

 farming in these days, he requires considerable capital. It takes a 

 long time, working out by the day or month, to acquire that capital, 

 and good land is expensive. If he wishes to buy a farm, it usually 

 takes all the money and credit at his command to buy the land alone. 



The acquisition of the land is only the beginning of the struggle. 

 Investigations have shown that in farming only about half the capital 

 required is invested in the land. The remainder is invested in build- 

 ings, fences, farm machinery, tools, and live stock, sufficient cash 

 being kept on hand for running expenses. Many a man buying a 

 farm will put all his money into the land and then struggle the remain- 

 der of his life with insufficient working capital, trying to meet expenses 

 and make the farm earn its equipment. A mere existence rather than 

 a living is too often the result. 



Should the same man let someone else furnish the farm and put 

 his own money into the working and proper handling of it he would 

 require much less capital. He would be relieved of a large burden of 

 debt, and with adequate equipment and cash on hand the farm would 

 be run far more efficiently and, generally, to his greater profit. 



There is a place, then, in our present agricultural system for tenant 

 farming. A man who has acquired some money, as a laborer or other- 

 wise, who desires to be independent but who has not sufficient money 

 or credit to buy and efficiently equip a complete farm, may let some- 

 one else furnish the farm while he furnishes the labor and part or all 

 of the equipment and other working capital. Whether the results of 

 such an arrangement are mutually satisfactory depends upon the 

 establishment of a system of renting which shall provide for a cropping 

 and fertilizing practice which will produce satisfactory returns in the 

 present but also safeguard the future fertility of the farm. The terms 

 of the lease must also be such as to secure a fair division of returns 

 between the owner and the renter, and give the tenant a permanent 

 attachment to and interest in the farm he works. 



1 Adapted from Farmers' Bulletin 437, pp. 4-5. 



3 C. Beaman Smith, joint author. 



