30 BULLETIN 650, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



necessary investment in work stock, productive stock, implements, 

 farm machinery, and other operating capital, and should also share 

 equally all expenses connected with the operation of the farm. In 

 several individual instances this plan has been used as a basis of 

 a half-and-half share lease and has apparently given good satis- 

 faction to both tenant and landowner. Under such a contract the 

 extra labor involved in the production of special or intensive crops 

 should naturally be considered as a part of the expense. This would 

 apply to such crops as berries, tobacco, hops, cotton, onions, sugar 

 beets, celery, and also to potatoes and apples. 



It is obviously desirable that farm leases should be based on a plan 

 which will not only give the tenant an elastic value for his labor 

 and managerial ability to compensate for the possible rise of land 

 values under the influence of speculative expectation and of com- 

 petition of tenants, but will also give the tenant an equal personal 

 interest with the landowner in the use of the most businesslike and 

 scientific methods of farming to increase production, and also in 

 economy with reference to all expenses connected with farm opera- 

 tions. These desirable features of a satisfactory form of lease would 

 seem to be largely supplied by the contract in question. In one of 

 the few individual instances in which essentially this form of con- 

 tract is now in operation it is provided in the contract not only that 

 all working capital shall be furnished in equal shares and that all 

 expenses shall be shared equally, but also that all farm products 

 used for family purposes by either the tenant or landowner shall 

 be paid for by the respective party to the agreement. In cases where 

 it is not convenient for landowner and tenant to furnish exactly 

 equal shares of the working capital, all requirements of justice and 

 fairness would be served by allowing each party the interest on his 

 share of the working capital, to be taken out of the gross proceeds 

 before the final division into equal shares. Where the landowner 

 and tenant do not contribute equal shares of the working capital, 

 it would be necessary to take out not only the interest on the unlike 

 shares, but also all expense of the farm operations, before dividing 

 the net proceeds into equal parts. If, however, the sharing of the 

 working capital were equal, the amount of farm income to be shared 

 equally could readily be determined by subtracting the total expense 

 from the gross returns. 



The great variation which is to be noted in the shares of the land- 

 owner and tenant in different systems of share leasing is evidence of 

 the long struggle which has been undergone in attempts to devise 

 methods of division satisfactory to both parties. It is apparent, 

 however, from the variation in the shares for landowner and tenant 

 proposed in leases, that the method of division has come about as a 



