LAND TENURE AND PLANTATION ORGANIZATION 
33 
tenancy in the South since the Civil War indicates an improvement 
in the status of farm labor. 
The characteristics and importance of tenancy in the plantation 
system remain to be considered. Plantation tenure is here con- 
sidered from two sources — one, from data collected by the Bureau 
of the Census; and the other, from studies of selected plantations. 
The former represents, quantitatively, the systems of renting in 
general in plantation areas; and the latter shows more or less qual- 
itatively the methods of employing tenant labor on the larger 
plantations. 
Percentage of Improved Land Operated by Tenants, 1919 
20 
PER CENT OF TENANCY 
40 60 
80 
fOO 
S3 SELECTED 
PLANTATION 
COUNTIES 
ALU COUNTIES 
S-PLANTATION 
STATES 
ALL COUNTIES 
14 SOUTHERN 
STATES 
ALL COUNTIES 
34- NON-SOUTHERN 
STATES 
UNITED STATES 
[US 
Fig. 9. — Percentage of improved land operated by tenants (not including croppers) in 93 plantation counties 
compared with the percentage operated by tenants in 9 plantation States, in 14 Southern States, in 34 
non-Southern States, and in the United States as a whole. (Cropper land in non-Southern States could 
not be separated from that worked by tenants.) 
The importance of tenancy in the plantation region is best shown 
by comparison. Of the improved land in farms in 93 selected 
counties in 1920, 38.1 per cent was worked by tenants (not including 
croppers) ; 38.2 per cent was worked by tenants in 328 plantation 
counties; and 32.3 per cent was worked by tenants in 9 plantation 
States. 25 The difference in the degree of tenancy in these areas 
and nonplantation regions of the country is not considerable when 
croppers are left out of account. (See fig. 9.) 26 
Three general classes of tenants are employed on plantations in 
addition to certain special forms of renting on sugar-cane and rice 
25 Virginia and Florida are not included. 
26 The rate of tenancy in the 93 selected counties measured by the number of tenant farms in 1920 was 
40.8 per cent (Table 2, Appendix C), as compared with 29.4 per cent on the same basis for the United States 
as a whole. Here the cropper farms were subtracted from the total number of tenant farms reported by 
the census but retained in the total number of farms in the United States. When cropper farms are omitted 
both from the number of tenant farms and the total number in the United States, the percentage on the 
same basis is 32.2. The measure of tenancy on the basis of improved farm acreage gives a more accurate 
picture of tenure conditions, owing to the wide difference in the size of farms in the plantation region. 
The rate shown here compares somewhat closely with the 38.2 per cent tenancy compiled for all the Southern 
States as shown in Table 3, Appendix C. 
94686°— 24f 3 
