s 
BULLETIN 1068, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE 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. 
» 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. 
