TENANT FARMERS IN UNITED STATES PRIOR TO 1880 241 



out any assistance, but these are generally very bad hovels; 

 the common way is to agree with a carpenter and mason for 

 so many days' work, and the countryman to serve them as a 

 laborer, which, with a few irons and other articles he cannot 

 make, is the whole expense ; many a house is built for less than 

 twenty pounds. As soon as this work is over, which may be 

 a month or six weeks, he falls to work on a field of corn, doing 

 all the hand labor of it, and, from not yet being able to buy 

 horses, pays a neighbor for plowing it; perhaps he may be 

 worth only a calf or two and a couple of young colts, bought 

 for cheapness; and he struggles with difficulties until these 

 are grown, but when he has horses to work, and cows that 

 give milk, and calves, he is then made, and in the road to plenty. 

 It is surprising with how small a sum of money they will venture 

 upon this course of settling." 1 



" Those who have money enough to stock a farm, have 

 enough to settle a tract of waste land, which is much more 

 flattering than being the tenant of another ; one would suppose 

 that such a circumstance would prevent their being a tenant 

 in the country ; but this is not the case, low rents and accidents 

 sometimes induce them to live rather than to settle." 2 



While it was possible for those who dared brave the hardships 

 and dangers of pioneer life to acquire homes with little money, 

 conditions were somewhat different if the young man or the 

 old settler wished to live in the older and well-settled commu- 

 nities. In 1775 the best lands near Boston and Philadelphia 

 would rent for five dollars per acre, and estates near Philadelphia 

 were sold for $125 per acre. 



These high values were exceptional, however, and only a short 

 distance back from the cities land values were relatively low. 

 Besides the dangers and privations on the frontier and the fact of 

 high land values near the cities, there were in these northern 

 states men of the type of the English country gentlemen, who 

 wished to own lands and live from the rents. This helps to 

 explain the fact that there were tenant farmers in America in 

 the eighteenth century. While the tenant farmers were the 



i "American Husbandry," Vol. I, pp. 190, 191. 2 Ibid,, Vol. I, p. 63. 



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