LAND TENURE AND PLANTATION ORGANIZATION 31 
arrangements usually considered as renting ma}' be relegated to the 
cropper classification, depending also upon the particular agreement. 21 
In Georgia and South Carolina all share tenants are classed as 
croppers and legally treated as such. 22 In all cases where the worker 
is legally classed as a cropper, such cropper has no title to the crop, 
which is a distinction important to remember in connection with 
the credit system, discussed later. In States where the cropper is 
legally classed as a tenant, where the landlord desires to avoid 
statutory requirements, he may obtain full title to the crop by written 
agreement. In such cases the cropper loses his legal status as a 
tenant. 
These are the legal distinctions. It is from the economic stand- 
point, however, that the cropper may be classified according to his 
actual status. From the standpoint of farm organization, whereby 
the landowner contributes the capital and equipment, and the cul- 
tivator of the land contributes the labor, and the landowner retains a 
large measure of control of both the land and equipment and the 
labor, the relationship is virtually that of employer and employee 
rather than that of landlord and tenant. 
It has also been pointed out by some students of the cropper system 
that the cropper arrangement is a form of contract labor whereby the 
laborer is furnished with living quarters, land, teams, and tools, and 
is paid a share of the crop at the end of the season in lieu of cash 
wages. 
But, on the other hand, from the standpoint of the laborer's 
virtual, in some cases actual, occupation of the land with a direct 
claim upon a share of the products of the enterprise, practically the 
same as that of a share tenant, the relationship more nearly corre- 
sponds to that of landlord and tenant. It is possible, also, to con- 
sider the cropper contract in the light of a lease of both land and 
equipment, for which a stipulated rent is paid in the form of a share 
of the crop. 23 Since the cropper shares certain risks, equally, pre- 
sumably? with the landlord — the risk involving expense for fer- 
tilizers, where fertilizers are used (which may be considered a part 
of the real estate), and the risk involved in production, which is the 
basis for compensation — and since the method of individual cultiva- 
tion of crops, general character of supervision, and the like, correspond 
in most respects to the system of tenancy, it is thought to be more 
consistent to leave the cropper in an intermediate position, as adopted 
in the present instance, so that he may be shifted to either the wage- 
labor group, or the tenant group, according to the particular analysis 
in contemplation. 24 
2i For the former see 32 Ark. 435, and for the latter 73 N. Car. 320 and 384. 
22 See 20 S. Car. 1, 6; and Georgia Revised Statutes, Sec. 3707. 
23 Obviously, such a contract as that described, to be considered in the light of a lease of equipment, would 
be supposed to provide that the cropper have at least nominal control of such equipment, which fails to 
correspond to the facts on the plantation, but which does often hold in the case of the cropper system on 
small farms. 
2i For a concise statement of the difference between tenant and cropper, see 71 N. Car. 7. (Quoted from 
the Amer. and Eng. Ency. of Law. vol. 8, p. 325.) 
