36 BULLETIN 1269, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
Table 12. — Plantation tenants, by tenure groups, on 161 cotton plantations, 1920-21 
Xumber 
of tenants 
(not in- 
cluding 
croppers) 
Percentage in each class 
Sections 
Share 
Standing <. Cash 
920 
134 
902 
882 
274 
376 
73.9 
100.0 
60.5 
28.6 
15.6 
10. 5 
28 • 
43.3 
83.8 
19. 1 
11 
28.1 
16 2 
71.9 
9.0 
Total 
3, 488 
54. 31. 
15.0 
Statistical data are not available, but it is the impression of the 
writer that the rent of most of the cane land on large plantations 
where refineries are operated is based on the market price of cane at 
the time of harvest. This system, for the lack of a better name, 
may be called the ''sliding scale"' method of measuring rent. In 
other words, the system of renting is connected almost inseparably 
with the purchase of the tenant's cane by the landlord, and resembles 
share renting in principle. (See renting arrangements of sugar-cane 
land, and sugar-cane marketing, below.) The smaller rented cane 
farms and some of the larger cane plantations, particularly those 
which have no refineries, usually rent on the share system. 30 A 
smaller proportion of cane land is rented for cash, the amount of 
which is either determined upon the usual acreage basis or by a 
stated number of cents per ton of cane produced. Very few croppers 
are used by the landlord in this area, but the cropper is occasionally 
employed as a subtenant by tenants of a higher status. The older 
system of paying a share of the refined sugar as rental is still in use 
in exceptional cases. 
The share system of leasing rice land prevails in the entire belt 
when rice land is rented at all. The landlord's share ranges from one- 
fifth to one-half of the crop. Shares of one-fifth to three-tenths are 
most common in Texas, as the tenant furnishes the water. One- 
half share is the rule in Louisiana, the water being furnished by the 
landlord. Tobacco land takes the prevailing systems of renting in 
the communities where tobacco is grown. Corn and other crop 
land on sugar-cane and rice rented farms is usually rented according 
to the prevailing systems in adjacent cotton sections, a third or 
fourth commonly being the landlord's share on the plantations 
selected for special study. 31 
Plantation tenant labor as to race or color. — The predominance of 
negro labor in plantation districts has already been mentioned. 
The proportion of negroes to whites in the various tenant classes is 
also large, but not so large as in the case of the wage workers. Since 
the Civil War the negro farm worker has passed slowly, but none the 
less surely, from the wage labor to the tenant status, as shown by the 
fact that 53.2 per cent of all improved tenant-operated land in 93 
10 Share renting here should not be confused with "share cropping." which is frequently referred to in 
■ 3 as the "share system," meaning the cropper system. 
» Casb or standing rent for corn land is also found OH sugar-cane and rice plantations. Some of the sugar- 
c me planters require of the tenant a given amount of corn per head of work stock used, say 100 bushels per 
head, and the tenant retains the remainder. In case the tenant fails to supply the required amount, the 
dillerence in cash is charged. This practice, however, is not the general rule. 
