244 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



wrote of the various forms of share tenancy as follows : " In 

 Maine, as in other parts of New England, the easy rates at 

 which lands hitherto have been obtained in fee simple, and the 

 scarcity of laborers, compared with the quantity of land to be 

 occupied, have rendered it in general difficult to obtain rents 

 for land. In some such instances it has been a custom for the 

 landlord to furnish the implements, cattle, half of the seed, and 

 pay half the taxes, and to receive half the products ; in others, 

 the tenant furnishes the whole of these except the taxes ; and 

 in some the landlord and tenant furnish different proportions 

 according to circumstances. In most cases -it is considered 

 that one half of the crops, deducting one half the value of the 

 seed and taxes, pays the expense of cultivation." x 



There was never a time in the nineteenth century when tenant 

 farmers could not be found in some parts of the United States. 



In 1821 the lands held in large tracts by landlords were rarely 

 farmed by hired managers and laborers, but had long been in the 

 hands of tenants. 2 About the same time a writer from Prince 

 Georges County, Maryland, was advising " leasing lands for a 

 term of years." 3 In 1829 "yearly tenancies" on estates of 

 non-resident landlords was mentioned as a cause of the absence 

 of good agriculture in Bedford County, Pennsylvania. 4 In 1833 

 this statement appeared in the American Farmer, published at 

 Baltimore, " Our farming tenantry are, literally speaking, an 

 itinerant community." 5 A farm of 360 acres in New Castle 

 County, Delaware, was reported as having been let to tenants 

 continuously from 1669 to 1832. The rent, in the latter part 

 of the period, was paid in kind but was a stipulated quantity 

 of each grain grown, not a share of the crop. 6 



In 1843 B. J. Goldsborough, of Cambridge, Maryland, made 

 the statement : " A large proportion, say two-thirds, if not three- 

 fourths of the farmers own the land which they till. . . . The 

 modes of renting or leasing land are various ; in fact, we have 



> "A Survey of the State of Maine," p. 206. 



* American Farmer, Vol. II, 1821, p. 10. Ibid., Vol. I, 1821, p. 297. 



Ibid., Vol. XI, 1829, p. 130. *Ibid., Vol. XV, 1833, p. 9- 



'Ibid., Vol. I, 1846, pp. 232-233. 



