BULLETIN 1068, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Table 4, giving farms classified by size, shows that since 1860 

 there has been a rapid and uninterrupted increase in the number 

 of farms of the size groups of 20 to 50 acres, 50 to 100 acres, and 

 100 to 500 acres. On the whole, there was an increase in the num- 

 ber of farms in the size groups above 500 acres until 1890, since 

 which date there has been a decrease. 



From the standpoint of this discussion it is unfortunate that the 

 census tabulations for decades prior to 1900 do not show the farms 

 of 100 to 500 acres broken into three groups, as has been done 

 since 1900, for 96 per cent of the increase in the total number of 

 farms of from 100 to 500 acres, between 1900 and 1920, was owing 

 to increase in the number of farms of 100 to 175 acres in size; that 

 is, to an increase in the number of farms in the group including sizes 

 nearest the average for the black land. 



Table 4. — Number of farms in different size-groups in the black land, by decades, 



since I860. 1 



Census year. 



Under 20 

 acres. 



20 to 50 

 acres. 



50 to 100 

 acres. 



100 to 500 

 acres. 



500 to 

 1,000 

 acres. 



1,000 



acres and 



above. 



1860 



1,246 

 3,634 

 4,813 

 3,317 

 2 5, 732 

 2 5, 087 

 6,210 



2,884 

 5,960 

 13,859 

 20,868 

 29, 496 

 23,002 

 24,496 



1,905 

 3,394 

 10, 190 

 16, 420 

 31, 451 

 34, 875 

 33, 497 



1,280 

 1,380 

 15, 406 

 18,244 

 25, 263 

 29, 712 

 29,056 



59 



27 



1,106 



1,140 



802 



710 



662 



7 



1870 



2 



1880 



484 



1890 



524 



1900 



397 



1910 



336 



1920 



239 







1 Computed from U. S. Census data. 



1 These increases are largely the results of a change in the definition of "farm." 



The possible increase in tenancy that would follow the breaking 

 up of all farms of 500 acres or more, assuming that the ownership 

 of these farms did not change after breaking up, is shown in Table 5. 

 It will be noted that the greatest number of tenant farms would 

 have resulted from the breaking up of farms of 500 acres or more 

 during the decade 1890 to 1900, when the greatest increase in tenant 

 farms occurred (59.1 per cent of the total increase since 1880). 

 Furthermore, it will be noted that, as a result of the slackened rate 

 of increase of tenants each decade since 1890, the breaking up of 

 farms of 500 acres or more has possibly played an increasingly 

 important role in the growth of tenancy (see Table 5, last column). 



Some writers on the tenure of this region have held that large 

 holdings in land were increasing in number and size in the black land 

 and that this was partly the cause of the growth of tenancy. But 

 data on all the land owned by persons owning 200 acres or more 

 taken from the tax rolls of Ellis, Hill, McLennan, and Bell Counties, 

 and summarized in Table 6, do not show that there has been a 

 tendency toward an increase in concentration of ownership in large 

 holdings. 



