TENANT FARMERS IN UNITED STATES PRIOR TO 1880 243 



management of overseers than that are let to tenants." This 

 was doubtless due to the scarcity of men willing to be tenant 

 farmers. The country gentlemen often turned to the exploita- 

 tion of the timber resources lying about them, as a means of 

 increasing their incomes as well as enlarging their agricultural 

 domains. " The gentlemen of New England have an oppor- 

 tunity of constantly increasing their estates. Those of fortune 

 erect sawmills on their new grants, by which means they are 

 enabled to make a very considerable profit by the woods at the 

 same time that they lay the foundation of future estates for 

 their posterity." l 



It is evident that the " country gentlemen," that is, 

 men who were striving to live after the fashion of the smaller 

 landlords of England who lived in comfort and even in some de- 

 gree of elegance without putting their own hands to the plow, 

 were more conspicuous than were the tenant farmers. Yet there 

 were tenant farmers in America on the birthday of our nation. 



The author of " American Husbandry "gives but slight infor- 

 mation as to the methods of renting land. Tenants are spoken of 

 in New England as occupying " their farms by lease, in the same 

 manner as it is in the mother country." There is evidence that 

 in 1775 rents near Boston and Philadelphia were paid in cash. 

 But as early as 1795 Richard Peters was letting land near 

 Philadelphia on a share system of tenure comparable to the 

 system now in use in the dairy belts of the United States, which 

 he thought more desirable than the cash system followed by 

 others. The tenant furnished the implements of husbandry 

 and the work horses, while the dairy cows, hogs, and sheep 

 were owned jointly and fed from the undivided products of the 

 farm. The horses were fed from the undivided hay but were 

 fed from the tenant's share of the grain. The taxes were shared 

 equally by landlord and tenant. The cost of clover seed, and of 

 commercial fertilizer, was shared equally. 2 



In 1829 Moses Greenleaf, in his survey of the state of Maine, 



1 "American Husbandry," Vol. I, pp. 65, 66, 109. 



2 Memoirs of the Philadelphia Soc. for promoting Agri., 1811, sections XLV- 

 XLVII. 



