28 BULLETIX 1068, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
his reward from the privileges of owning the farm, including the 
right to all increases in land value and to any intangible values the 
tenant may place on ownership. 
Share tenancy, therefore, yields the tenant a greater immediate 
cash return than he could earn with an equivalent expenditure of 
cash and iabor as an owner operator, and this condition tends to 
increase the period of tenancy of operators, and thus the per cent 
of tenancy. A rigid enforcement of the antibonus law. if the legally 
sjDecified share is less than the net return attributable to land after 
all expenses are deducted (not including rent to be paid as an ex- 
pense ) . would tend to make land values lower than they would be 
were there no such law. and the enforcement of the law under the 
conditions outlined would, without doubt, tend to lessen the stimulus 
to tenancy mentioned above. 
Land owners in the black land have frequently said their rents 
were too small to yield them a return on the capital invested in the 
land equivalent to the return yielded on the same capital if it were 
put in equally safe alternate investments. In 1919. a year favorable 
to landlords, the landlord's net return on his farm capital was less 
for both tenant classes than the average first mortgage loan rate. 
The average rate of net return to the landlords on share-tenant 
farms was o.6 per cent and on cropper farms 6.6 per* cent (see item 
8. Table 15). 
However, if the returns of the landlord from rent in the past were 
supplemented by his net returns from increases in land values it 
would be found that his total net gain as a land owner has been very 
attractive. By reference to data in Table 7. it will be noted that 
land values in the black land as a whole, including improvements 
placed on the land, have increased each decade since 1S7<). and by 
increases varying from 39 to 144 per cent. 
In order to give the proper emphasis to this important phase of the 
tenure problem, data on each land purchase were taken from all 
operators interviewed who had bought land in the black land. These 
data are summarized in Table 16. In each individual case the in- 
crease or decrease in land values was calculated by deducting the 
value of improvements (buildings, fences, drainage, clearing, etc.) 
from the gross increase or decrease. All increases are calculated in 
terms of their equivalent in interest compounded annually on the 
original investment, which is. in reality, counting the original invest- 
ment and the accumulated increase as reinvested capital for each 
year. 
It will be noted that only 3.7 per cent of all purchases were made 
at a lo<s. and that these places were usually kept for a very short 
time. Practically no losses were recorded on purchases where the 
