of labor provided by tenants or sharecroppers and that provided by other 

 tenure groups in flue-cured tobacco production, with or without the pro- 

 gramfc Although tenure arrangements may not be flexible during short periods 

 of time, they may be flexible and neutral for a long period of time — such 

 as the period since the initiation of the tobacco programs. The long period 

 is of primary interest in this study. If tenure arrangements are not neutral 

 or flexible in the long run, it would have to be determined whether they 

 favored the laborers or the landowners in the distribution ef benefits of 

 flue-cured tobacco programs. 



Sources of Data 



Opportunity returns — The available data prescribe some limits on test- 

 ing the hypothesis that in their effect on returns to labor tenure arrange- 

 ments are flexible (or neutral), especially in the long run. The estimated 

 returns to croppers, rather than returns to tenants, are compared with 

 alternative earnings to exclude management returns. The opportunity re- 

 turns most desirable for comparison purposes are those to labor whose level 

 of skill is the same as that of croppers. In general, croppers are 

 practically unskilled and have little education. Jobs open to these people 

 usually are limited to those as farm wagevorkers or unskilled laborers 

 in the nonfarm economy. Ideally, farm wage rates, excluding returns to 

 croppers for the time span of this study, particularly in the two study 

 regions, would provide a relevant set of opportunity returns. Another set 

 would be time series estimates of income to unskilled laborers in urban 

 locations to which croppers typically have migrated when shifting to nonfarm 

 employment. Unfortunately, some substitutes for these ideal data are 

 necessary. 



Croppers returns were compared with farm wage rates in the study 

 regions as estimated by the North Carolina and Virginia State Departments 

 of Agriculture and Crop Reporting Services for 1922 through 1962. A short- 

 coming of these data is that the wage of the hired farmworker, as well as 

 cropper returns, may be affected by the flue-cured tobacco programs. In- 

 come data from the U. S. Census of Population are available for 1940, 1950, 

 and 1960 only. Returns to croppers were also compared with the median 

 income of males classified in the population censuses as laborers, except 

 those in farming and mining. National wage rates for workers in manufactur- 

 ing, as estimated by the U. S. Department of Labor, were used as a third 

 comparison. These rates are also available for 1922 through 1962, but are 

 reported by industries and areas only since 1950. 



Tenure structure — The U. S. Census of Agriculture provides data, by 

 counties, on the number of owner-operators, part owners, tenants, and share- 

 croppers for 5-year intervals since 1920. Data on the number of hired farm- 

 workers are available by counties beginning with the 1949 Census of Agricul- 

 ture. Only since the census of 1954 have data on the number of regular hired 

 workers (those working on farms 150 days or more each year) been available 

 on a county basis. Regular, rather than seasonal work, is the more compar- 

 able alternative employment available to croppers in the farm economy. 



