OWNERSHIP OF TENANT FARMS IN NORTH CENTRAL STATES 5 
In 1900 the landlords with more than two rented farms owned 
12.64 per cent of the rented farms. They were 3.34 per cent of the 
landlords residing in the North Central States. Their rented farms 
contained 12.85 per cent of the acreage and were worth 13.56 per cent 
of the value of all rented farms held by landlords residing in those 
States. 
In 1920, 3.43 per cent of the landlords owned more than two 
rented farms, their rented farms being 11.32 per cent of the number, 
comprising 13.21 per cent of the acreage and 14.8 per cent of the 
value of all rented farms in those States. If conditions in the 85 
counties studied are representative of conditions in the North Central 
States as a whole in 1920, it is apparent that no great change occurred 
since 1900 in the number of rented farms in those States which were 
held by owners of more than two rented farms. The great proportion 
of the rented farms of the North Central States was owned by persons 
Percentage of Rented Farms Owned by Persons 
Owning One Rented Farm in the County, 1920 
Fig. 2. — In 9 of the 85 counties over 90 per cent of the rented farms were owned by landlords who 
owned but one rented farm in the county. In a block of 11 central Illinois counties less than 70 per- 
cent of the rented farms were owned by landlords who owned but one rented farm in the county 
who owned but one rented farm, both in 1900 and in 1920 (figs. 
2 and 3). 
Replies of landlords of rented farms to a question relating to the 
number of tenants who rented land from them in 1920 indicate that 
the proportion of landlords who have more than one tenant is some- 
what larger than that which is shown by information derived from 
index of ownership of rented farms. The results, however, are not 
strictly comparable. The landlords who answered the questionnaire 
owned more rented farms, according to the index, than those who 
did not. In their replies landlords included tenants who rented part 
and owned part, whereas the index excluded such tenants. Some 
landlords gave the number of persons in the families of their tenants 
rather than the number of their tenants and so tended to exaggerate 
the proportion of landlords who had more than one tenant. Other 
landlords may have included as tenants persons who rented homes 
