34 BULLETIN 650, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
than in rent. But sheer generosity and charity are no more fre- 
quently seen in farm lease contracts than in other business transac- 
tions. Such cases may be left out of consideration, for most lease | 
contracts are intended to be strict business propositions. 
Many farm leases now in operation indicate an apparently satis- 
factory manner of eliminating all unknown quantities from a lease, 
reducing it to a simple, specific, and readily understandable form. 
According to these contracts all equipment, including tools, machin- 
ery, work stock, productive stock, and other working capital, is 
owned in equal partnership; all expenses, including hired labor and 
taxes, are shared equally, and the proceeds are divided half-and-half. 
All products taken for family use by either landlord or tenant are 
charged against the respective parties. This system is obviously fair 
and explicit. The objection may be raised that it involves much 
bookkeeping, but farm bookkeeping is desirable from every stand- 
point. In fact, many lease contracts stipulate that the tenant shall 
keep a complete daybook in which every item of expense and receipt 
is entered. 
Such a contract provides a basis for the fair and equal sharing 
of all crops which may be grown on a farm, however unlike the 
amounts of labor required for their production, for if all expense 
for extra and hired labor is shared equally it is obviously just that 
the proceeds from crops requiring extra labor should be shared on 
the same basis as those which require little labor. Moreover, the 
unfairness of requiring the tenant to deliver crops to distant markets 
is obviated by sharing the expense of the labor thus involved. 
Again, this plan is readily adaptable to cases in which the tenant 
and landlord furnish working capital in unequal shares. In such 
cases it is merely necessary to take out of the undivided farm income 
the interest on each one’s share of the working capital and also the 
operating expenses, after which the remainder is divided half-and- 
half. Many leases constructed on this plan are in operation. 
Share farming seems to be based on the idea of equal division of 
the proceeds. In those cases in which the fractions are not half and 
half, but one-third and two-thirds, one-fourth and three-fourths, or 
two-fifths and three-fifths the unequal sharing is an adjustment to 
the fact that operating expenses and the cost of equipment are not 
borne equally. Even in such cases it would appear preferable that 
all expenses and interest on the unequal shares of working capital 
be taken out of the undivided farm income and that the remaining 
proceeds be then divided equally. The feeling of full and frank 
partnership between the landlord and tenant would thus be kept to 
the fore. The tendency would thereby be to avoid reducing the ten- 
ant to the status of a hired laborer receiving a bonus in the crops as 
an inducement for extra effort. 
