99, BULLETIN 1322, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
below that which these tenants would have had to pay to buy similar 
property. This was an aspect of a speculative period which brought 
occasional decrements along with large increments. These owners 
probably did not relax their efforts to help the land produce rent 
more nearly in accord with its current market valuations in the later 
years. It is not surprising, however, that rents did not maintain 
their former high ratios in relation to real-estate valuations. Prob- 
ably no amount of effort on the part of these owners could have pro- 
duced this result. Their constant efforts to keep rents high doubi- 
less helped to keep the activities on these farms suited to the condi- 
tions imposed by commercial economy. If through lower valuations 
these farms had gravitated into the hands of farmers under less 
stimulus to make them produce the largest possible surpluses, the 
result would have been a public disadvantage. It is to be doubted 
whether so wide a departure of market valuations from computed 
valuations was necessary in order to stimulate owners to exert. them- 
selves to maintain a level of saving power commensurate with market 
valuations.*® 
ADJUSTMENTS IN RENTING AND PURCHASING FARMS 
It is apparent from this inquiry that three groups of influences 
have affected the economic position of the owners of these farms in 
the three decades ended in 1920. Anticipations of the future, as 
registered in the price level of the real estate, constitute one of these 
three groups. A second group is made up of the long-time trends of 
other factors tending to burden or benefit owners. The third group 
consists of the variabilities that mark these factors in their year-to- 
year departures from their trends. 
The anticipations held by those whose actions determined the mar- 
ket valuation of this real estate were not borne out fully by the actual 
developments. Unless undue weight is given to imponderable 
psychic incomes, the failure of the anticipation to be borne out in 
later years must have resulted either from inaccurate estimation of 
declines in interest rates and operating expenses or of increases in 
yields and prices, or from both types of miscalculation. In respect to 
trends, however, the discrepancies between the anticipated and the 
realized were perhaps no greater than the discrepancies between an- 
ticipated and realized variations from the trends. 
The operation of land under a share-rent contract is one adjust- 
ment made desirable by the variability of physical yield, costs, and 
prices. As in the case of the 16 farms included.here, one phase of 
this adjustment is the assumption of some operating costs by owners, 
the gross share being enlarged to compensate the owners. The result 
of partial transfer of operating costs to owners in the case of these 
farms was to increase the variability of the primary net rent they 
received and to bring somewhat greater stability to the net earnings 
of the tenants. Apparently the risks of variation in crop yield, 
price, and cost were not shared by parties other than owners and 
tenants, except in the case of hail in some instances. In effect, the 
tenants paid an enlarged share of the crops to the owners to offset 
14 That somewhat similar conditions have prevailed in large areas of the United States 
appears to be established in ‘‘ Relation of Land Income to Land Value,” by C. R. Cham- 
bers, U.. S. Dept. Agr. Bull. 1224. 
