CONTRACTS USED IN RENTING FARMS ON SHARES. 3 



the essential features of the lease agreement was 2,907, including 

 records from 414 dairy farms, 320 stock farms, 298 general farms in 

 the corn belt, 1,113 cotton farms, 453 wheat farms, 176 potato farms, 

 100 sugar-beet farms, and 33 bean farms. The lease contract often 

 contains minor specific agreements between landowner and tenant 

 not definitely indicated in a farm survey record. All available farm 

 leases, therefore, have been examined with reference to those points. 



LENGTH OF LEASE PERIOD. 



In a majority of cases the lease runs for only one year, usually 

 with privilege of renewal upon one or two months' notice. Often 

 the lease provides more positively that the contract is understood to 

 be continuous from year to year unless due notice of intent to dis- 

 continue is served by either party. The lease year may coincide 

 with the calendar year, or, more commonly, with the crop year 

 (March 1 to March 1). 



Contrary to natural expectation and popular belief, annual lease 

 contracts may not mean more frequent moving of the tenant than do 

 long-term contracts. In fact, investigations on Wisconsin and Illi- 

 nois dairy farms show that tenants remain longer on the same farm 

 under an annual renewable lease than under lease contracts of two, 

 three, or five years' duration. On Kansas grain farms tenants often 

 have remained 15 to 20 years on the same farm under an annual 

 lease. Moreover, in some sections tenants have operated the same 

 farm 25 to 50 years under annual leases, in the meantime buying 

 farms which they in turn have leased to others. In fact, there are 

 leaseholds which have descended from father to son, the present 

 tenants having been born on farms then operated by their fathers, 

 thus continuing tenant occupancy under annual lease without change 

 into the second generation. Formerly farms might be leased in New 

 York for as long as 99 years, but in 1846 the New York Legislature 

 passed a law prohibiting leasing under longer contracts than 12 

 years. The purpose of this law was to check the establishment of a 

 tenant class. 



England is often incorrectly cited as a country where tenancy 

 problems have been solved by the adoption of a system of long-term 

 leases. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of leases in England 

 are for one year only, and are renewable. The same tendencj^ is seen 

 in the United States. 



Most lease contracts with negro tenants on cotton farms, Polish 

 tenants on onion farms, Italian tenants on strawberry farms, Portu- 

 guese tenants on bean farms, and Japanese and Chinese tenants on 

 potato farms are verbal, annual, and renewable. In general, the 



