TENANCY IN THE WESTERN STATES 537 



It is thus apparent that the Western States are characterized by 

 a low average price of land, accompanying which one finds, so far 

 as the main extent of acreage is concerned, the live-stock and the 

 grain-growing industries. There are, however, a great number of 

 instances of agriculture as highly specialized as is to be found 

 anywhere in the United States. This, for the most part, is devoted 

 to fruit and vegetable farming. Where the general and the spe- 

 cialized farming is within the same county it is not a simple mat- 

 ter to trace the characteristics of each as regards tenure. However, 

 in a considerable number of instances the types of farming are 

 fairly separated, making the case an easier one. 



Another prominent characteristic of the Western country is its 

 newness. Of the acreage of farm land added to the total within 

 the United States during the past decade, nearly half was within 

 this division of states. More homesteads have been taken during 

 the past decade than for any other since the passage of the Home- 

 stead Act. During the same time a few thousand Carey Act 

 entries have been made, and, in addition, large numbers of farms 

 have been granted under the various other acts in vogue. Within 

 the past seven years entries of public land in the Western States 

 have equaled in extent the entire state of New Mexico. Nearly 

 all of the farms recently acquired from the government are counted 

 as owned farms and so tend to reduce the proportion of rented 

 farms within the states in which they are located. 



Of the 373,000 farms in the Western division in 1910, 52,000, 

 or 14. 1 per cent, were in the hands of tenants. This is a smaller 

 percentage than for any of the geographic divisions of states 

 except New England, and less than two-fifths that for the United 

 States as a whole. Moreover, the price of land is lower in the 

 Western States than in any other division of northern states outside 

 of New England. Taking the northern and western states by 

 divisions, as now recognized by the Census Bureau, the relation of 

 tenancy to value of land may be viewed in the large. It would 

 hardly be instructive to include in this comparison the Southern 

 States, since the tenant question is there so essentially different 

 from that of the North. 



