38 BULLETIN 1269, tJ. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
modate the time, facilities, and cropping system of the landlord. 
For example, reliable tenants may be placed on farms remote from 
the plantation headquarters, while croppers and wage laborers may 
be employed so as to obtain a balanced cropping system for the 
plantation as a whole. 
Changes in systems of renting. — Owin^ to rising land values, growing 
scarcity of labor, and keener competitive conditions in general, the 
tendency seems to be growing throughout the last two decades for 
the plantation landlord, in most areas, to take more active manage- 
ment of the farm. This practically always results in the abandon- 
ment of cash and standing renting in favor of some form of share 
tenancy or the cropper system. As expressed by one planter, it is 
understood that any class of share tenants is to be supervised more 
or less closely, which is not so true of cash and standing renters. 
Answers to an inquiry from 105 plantation operators in 1920 on the 
subject of changes in systems of renting showed 19 changes to share 
renting since 1913, 11 changes to the cropper system, and 75 reported 
no change. The principal reason given for these changes is the same 
general reason which has caused, since the Civil War, a consistent 
rise in the status of the laborers, namely, scarcity of labor. A cur- 
sory examination of census data substantiates the belief that share 
tenancy, including share croppers, is increasing on the plantation at 
the present time. 
Following prosperous periods in the South, the status of plantation 
labor in general is raised. Wage laborers become croppers, and 
croppers become tenants, at least nominally. There are two prin- 
cipal reasons for this: First, tenants in the lower status accumulate 
enough during the period of rising prices to become more independent 
operators; and, second, in prosperous seasons such labor becomes 
more mobile and independent, and consequently attains a better 
position to bargain with the landlord. 
During periods of adversity in agriculture the reverse movement 
occurs. Tenants lose their equipment and revert to the status of 
wage laborers or croppers, and both croppers and renters may prefer 
to shift all or part of the risk to the landlord and become wage hands. 
This backsliding movement usually follows in the wake of boll-weevil 
invasion or other severe adversities in agriculture. Tenure condi- 
tions in the past have usually been more stable in North Carolina 
and vSouth Carolina than in other plantation areas. However, with 
the present advance of the boll weevil in these States changes 
probably will occur. 
RELATIONS OF LABORERS AND TENANTS TO PLANTATION 
OPERATORS AND LANDLORDS 
RENTING ARRANGEMENTS 
Of tenants on cotton plantations. — In the four methods of share 
renting on cotton plantations, which have been enumerated, the 
landlord receives as rental a third of crops other than cotton and a 
fourth of cotton, or a straight fourth, third, or half share of all crops 
produced, except that in some cases, particularly in connection with 
talf-share renting, the landlord may receive all the cottonseed. In all 
forms of share renting the landlord contributes, besides land and 
buildings, a share of the ginning and bagging and ties, planting seed, 
