266 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



These figures indicate a constant movement from tenancy to 

 landownership. But, from generation to generation, a smaller 

 percentage of the farmers are able to make this transition. It 

 should be noted in the above table that of the occupiers of farm 

 homes who were under 25 years of age, a smaller percentage 

 were owners in 1900 than in 1890. This is true for every age 

 period given in the table except one; the reverse being true 

 for the period from 35 to 44. This suggests that the decline 

 in the percentage of landownership is due, in part, to the in- 

 ability, or disinclination, of the succeeding generation to acquire 

 landownership so generally as their predecessors. 



The movement from tenancy to ownership has been more 

 complete in some parts of the United States than in others. 

 This is shown in the previous table, which shows the farm 

 homes of selected states classified by tenure and by age of the 

 farmer. 



These figures show that in those southern states where negro 

 farmers are dominant the movement from tenancy to ownership 

 is far less pronounced than in Texas where the whites predomi- 

 nate over the blacks. In the Northern States farmers appear to 

 be highly successful in becoming the owners of farms. Even in 

 Illinois, where 39.3 per cent of the farmers were tenants, all but 

 about one- tenth of the farmers 65 years of age and over had 

 succeeded in becoming owners. The residuum of tenants left at 

 this age was 8.6 per cent in Iowa, 7.6 per cent in Indiana, and 

 only 4.1 per cent in Wisconsin. To contrast the old with the 

 new, Massachusetts showed 4.3 per cent and Nebraska 13.6 

 per cent of tenancy among farm-home owners 65 years of age 

 and over. That this contrast is not general is shown by the 

 fact that in North Dakota the percentages of tenancy among 

 these older farmers was only 5.1. 



A proper conception of the economic status of the American 

 farmer at the close of the nineteenth century must give proper 

 emphasis to the fact of landownership on the part of farmers. 

 In the North landowning farmers generally predominated. In 

 the Cotton Belt tenants outnumber the landowning farmers. 

 Figure 12 shows the distribution of landowning farmers in 



