32 
BULLETIN 1433, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
Dividing the landlords of known occupational status into three 
groups — those reporting 1 tenant, those with 2 tenants, and those 
with 3 tenants or more — it was found that about the same propor- 
tion of each group gave their occupation as farming, but of the 
farmer landlords proportionately more of those with 1 or 2 tenants 
apparently were tenant farmers themselves than was the case with 
landlords with 3 or more tenants. This is shown by a separation of 
the landlords who farmed into two groups, those withholding a part 
of their acreage and those renting it all. Of the farmer landlords 
with 1 tenant 36.7 per cent rented all of their land to the tenant, of 
the farmer landlords with 2 tenants 32.2 per cent rented all of their 
land to their 2 tenants, whereas of those with 3 or more tenants only 
19.6 per cent rented to their tenants all of the land which they owned. 
Proportionately more of the landlords with 3 or more tenants were 
bankers and proportionately less had laboring occupations than was 
the case with landlords with either 1 or 2 tenants. Housekeeping 
was given as the occupation of 63.1 per cent of the women who 
owned rented farms and who gave their occupational status, and an 
additional 25.7 per cent reported themselves as idle, sick, retired, or 
otherwise unoccupied. 
To ascertain the extent to which owner operators are the land- 
lords of rented farms in the county in which they farm, the names of 
owner farmers in 14 counties, distributed in six of the North Central 
States, were compared with the names of owners of tenant and 
manager-operated farms in those counties. Of a total of 13,068 
landlords owning and living in the 14 counties studied 1,596 or 12.2 
per cent were evidently operating one of the farms which they owned, 
renting the other farm or farms to tenants, or hiring managers. 
These 1,596 landlord-owner operators owned 12.6 per cent of the 
farms rented to tenants, 18.4 per cent of the tracts rented to part 
owners, 11.2 per cent of the farms operated by managers, and 7.3 per 
cent of the owner-operated farms in the 14 counties studied. A small 
percentage of the other owner farmers probably owned rented farms 
elsewhere than in the county in which they farmed, and a small per- 
centage of the tenant farmers probably were the owners of rented 
farms (Table 28). 
Table 28. — Percentage of rented farms of landlords resident in the county held by 
landlords farming as owner operators in the county, average of 14 counties in the 
North Central States, 1920 x 
Class of landlords 
Land- 
lords 
Rented or manager 
operated farms or 
tracts owned 
Percentage held of farms or 
parcels of farms 
Total 
Average 
Tenant 
operated 
Part- 
owner 
operated 
Manager 
operated 
Farming as owner-operators in the county. 
Not farming as owner-operators in the 
county. .. 
Number 
1,596 
11, 472 
Number 
2 2, 188 
13, 657 
Number 
1.37 
1.19 
Per cent 
12.6 
87.4 
Per cent 
18.4 
81.6 
Per cent 
11.2 
88.8 
Total studied. 
13, 068 
15, 845 
1.21 
100.0 
100.0 
100.0 
i The names of the counties studied follow with the percentage of tenant or manager-operated farms 
held by landlords themselves owner-operator farmers in the county: Madison, Ohio, 12.4; Miami, Ohio, 
11.4; Clinton, Mich., 11.8; Lenawee, Mich., 10.1; Walworth, Wis., 5.1; DeKalb, 111., 5.4; Kankakee, 111., 
8.5; Logan, 111., 9.5; Black Hawk, Iowa, 6.8; Calhoun, Iowa, 10.4; Plymouth, Iowa, 8.9; Warren, Iowa, 
13.4; McPherson, Kans., 14.6; Reno, Kans., 14.0. 
2 In addition each of the 1,596 landlords owned the farm which he operated in person. 
