out of it. At that time it was worth $75 per acre ; now it is 

 worth $190." The increase in the price of land has changed 

 farming so that it is no longer a poor man's occupation, as 

 land is rapidly getting beyond the reach of the poor man. It 

 is also bringing sharply before the country the need of better 

 education in order that farmers who will make the best use of 

 the soil may be trained up in our schools. 



Rent and Tenancy. Agricultural rent is what the farmer 

 can afford to pay for the use of land for agricultural purposes. 

 There are three kinds of rent in the United States : cash rent, 

 the payment of a definite sum per acre for the use of land; 

 crop rent, common in the South but not in the North, the pay- 

 ment of a specified number of bales of cotton or bushels of corn 

 for the use of a certain piece of land ; and share rent, the pay- 

 ment of a share of the crop raised whatever the amount may 

 be. Cash and crop rent are fixed; share rent varies with the 

 yield per acre. 



The increase in the number of tenant farmers in the 

 United States is now viewed with alarm due to the fact that 

 the history of tenantry in Europe has too often been a history 

 of sorrow. Every third farm in the United States is now in 

 the hands of a tenant farmer and the number is increasing 

 year by year as may be seen from the following table : 



1880 25.6% 



1890 28.4% 



1900 35.3% 



1910 37 % 



The tenant farmer is not as good for our national devel- 

 opment as an owner. The tenant is not interested in keeping 

 up the fertility of the soil, for the land does not belong to him 

 and he wishes to get as much out of it as he can in the short- 

 est possible time. He can not improve the buildings and fen- 

 ces, for this task belongs to the landlord. He is not interested 

 in the development of local schools, for he does not expect to 

 remain in the neighborhood, nor is the non-resident landlord, 

 for he no longer uses the school. Roads are not built if they 

 can be voted down locally because the tenant is not anxious to 



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