34 BULLETIN 1068, TJ. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The relative importance of the share-tenant stage is shown by the 

 fact that the 109 owners had spent more time in the share-tenant 

 stage than in the cropper and farm-hand stages and in other occu- 

 pations combined. Furthermore, owners who received no fortuitous 

 assistance in their tenure advance had been share tenants an ' ag- 

 gregate of 4,876 years as compared with an aggregate of 2,183 years 

 spent in other occupations in the farm-hand stages and the cropper 

 stage combined. 



More than half of all croppers, and 36 of the 194 share tenants, 

 had attempted to operate in higher-tenure stages, but had failed in 

 the attempt. 



MOVEMENTS OF OPERATORS ON THE AGRICULTURAL LADDER. 



If a man should climb the agricultural-tenure ladder by tak- 

 ing successively all the tenure steps that are found in the black 

 land, he would pass through, in the order named, the following 

 stages: farm-hand, share-cropper, share-tenant, cash-tenant, owner- 

 additional, and owner-operator stages. However, only one of the 

 368 operators had taken all of these steps. For all practical pur- 

 poses the tenure ladder in the black land may be given as follows: 

 The farm-hand and cropper stages as the first step ; the share-tenant 

 stage as the next step ; and the owner-operator and the owner-addi- 

 tional stages as the final step. 



Very few operators climb the tenure ladder without interruption 

 by reverses. 36 Twenty-six share tenants had never been in any 

 other tenure stage, and had farmed for an average of 10.8 years each ; 

 111 operators had been either croppers and share tenants or farm 

 hands and tenants, but 56 of these had at one time or other been re- 

 versed in tenure, and 82 operators had taken all three tenure steps, 

 59 of these having had no tenure reversals. Thus only 16 per cent 

 of all operators had climbed the agricultural ladder to the top with- 

 out suffering some reverse in tenure status. 



The proportions of all operators in each tenure class who had 

 suffered tenure reverses were as follows : Croppers, 60 per cent ; share 

 tenants, 29.8 per cent; owners additional, 19.2 per cent; owner oper- 

 ators, 14.5 per cent. Economic pressure or failure caused 61.8 per 

 cent of all reverses of croppers, 46.8 per cent of the reverses of share 

 tenants, and 44.4 per cent of the reverses of owners. The different 

 proportions of operators in each tenure who suffered reverses are 

 largely due to the different proportions of operators of inferior abil- 

 ity in the different tenure classes. These differences in ability will 



86 A reverse here means a change from a higher to a lower tenure form unless such a 

 change was accompanied by unmistakable evidence that the operator was better off 

 financially by the change and mad* it of his own free will. 



