30 BULLETIN 1269, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
since we have elected in the present study to give the cropper an 
intermediate and separate classification in so far as possible and to 
distinguish tenancy from nominal tenancy, it seems desirable to 
compare the cropper with pure wage labor on the one hand, and 
with pure tenancy on the other. There are local usages of the term 
peculiar to the various sections; there are legal distinctions to a 
certain extent peculiar to the various States; and there are certain 
popular usages which have crept into the literature of the subject. 14 
It is necessary, for clearness, to set out certain fundamental distinc- 
tions. 
It has been determined that the relationship of employer and 
employee exists where the employer has the right to select and dis- 
charge the employee and the right to direct what work shall be done 
and the way in which it shall be done. 15 Such an arrangement 
carries with it the idea that the employee furnishes no part of the 
capital, and has no claim upon the products resulting from his labor, 
except in the sense of a laborer's lien. 16 
It is also established, in law and practice, that the relationship of 
landlord and tenant exists where one person occupies and holds in 
temporary possession the land of another, on consideration of render- 
ing a stipulated rent to the owner or proprietor. 17 The title to the 
product resulting from such tenancy is in the tenant until after 
harvest. 18 Here also, supposedly, the tenant furnishes most of the 
equipment and labor. 
It happens, however, in the employment of labor on the planta- 
tion, that practically all imaginable combinations between pure 
wage agreements on the one hand and tenant contracts on the other, 
are to be found. These intermediary combinations result from share- 
tenancy and the cropper system; and certainly the most important 
one is that involving the cropper. 
The plantation cropper is a farm worker who supplies the man labor 
necessary in working the crop, and sometimes part or all the seed and 
fertilizer, and bears part or all the cost of marketing, receives a share of 
the crop, and works under the close supervision of the plantation or estate 
operator. 19 
By the statutes of some States, the cropper is considered a share 
tenant, while in others he has been designated as a "wage laborer 
working for a share of the crop as wages." 20 In other States the 
cropper contract may be either that of wage labor or of tenancy, 
depending upon the intention of the contracting parties; or certain 
u The indiscriminate use of the terms "cropper," "share cropper," "half cropper," "third cropper," 
"share system," "working on shares," has frequently led to confusion, even in the South. The terms 
"share cropper" and "working on snares" in the plantation area usually refer to the cropper system. In 
Bome States, however, for instance South Carolina and < teorgia, thej maj include the share tenant. "Half 
cropper" may locally mean cropper, or it may refer to the half-share tenant. In the western part of the 
area the term "cropper" is seldom used locally in any form, "half tenant" or "half hand" being used in- 
stead. But there is a class of agricultural workers which may logically be classed as croppers in all the 
areas. 
' See American and English F.ncyclopedia of Law, vol.20; American Digest, vol. 13; and 10fi La. 371. 
"' See ( reorgia Ke\ ised Statutes, sec. 3334-5; 149 Ala., 373; also the statutory provisions on the subject in 
the other States. 
17 See The Rural Encyclopedia, vol. 4, p. 421; American and English Encyclopedia of Law, "Landlord 
and Ten ml "; Hounei ' Law Dictionary : Tiffany, Heal Property, vol. 1, p. 121:71 X. Car. 7; etc. 
_ ,, 
See Department of Agriculture Bulletins No. 337, p. 6; and No. 648 p. i. r >. 
' i or deci lor and tatutes designating the cropper as a wage hand, see 71 N. Car. 7; 36 S. E. (Ga.) 
69; \ la bam a Code, Sees. 4742-3, For the classification of the cropper as a tenant, see 7ti Miss. 1S7;K4 Miss. 
969: 
Bel (Tenn.) 21 1. w a bburn, vol. I, p. U9. 
