TENANT FARMERS IN UNITED STATES PRIOR TO 1880 245 



no well-defined system of any kind. A lease for more than two 

 or three years is a rare thing. There is but little of the English 

 system here, and but little land that is leased for money rent. 

 The only settled thing seems to be that the tenant shall have 

 house rent, fuel, pasture, and fodder for a cow or two, and a 

 patch, not exceeding an acre, for a garden and a few potatoes. 

 Sometimes the tenant gives only his labor for one-fourth of the 

 crop, the landlord being to all the expense of teams, utensils, 

 feed, etc. Then again the tenant furnishes these, getting one- 

 half or two-thirds, according as the bargain may be respecting 

 taxes, improvements and other matters." 1 



An So-acre farm three miles from Mt. Holly, Burlington 

 County, New Jersey, was rented from 1854 to 1859 for a cash 

 rental of $600 per annum. Another farm of 70 acres rented on 

 shares yielded the owner $800 in one year, which was thought 

 to be no more than the average. These were not truck farms 

 but depended on grain, stock, potatoes, and fruit. 2 



In 1864, potato land near Chicopee in the Connecticut Valley 

 was rented for $20 per acre. 3 



That there were tenant farmers in the older settled parts of 

 the country at the close of the eighteenth century was made 

 clear in the last chapter, but tenancy was not confined, at that 

 time even, to the regions long settled. In 1799 a young man 

 2 1 years of age went from New England to Oneida County, New 

 York, to make his way by farming. The country was then 

 new, and having no money with which to buy land he entered 

 into an agreement with a landowner to clear land for " the first 

 crop and ashes," with board and team furnished by the landlord. 

 With this opportunity as a starting point the young man came 

 in time to be the owner of a farm of 250 acres, and this was 

 done without leading a parsimonious life, for his country- 

 life ideal was expressed as follows, " My determination in the 

 first place was to live pretty well, and if we could lay up 

 anything against old age to do so." 4 



1 The Cultivator, 1843, Vol. X, p. 113. 



2 Country Gentleman, 1859, Vol. XIII, p. 42. 



3 Ibid., 1865, Vol. XXVI, p. 283. Ibid., 1851, Vol. IX, p. 210. 



