OWNERSHIP OF TENANT FARMS IN THE UNITED STATES 
43 
KINSHIP OF FARM TENANTS TO THEIR LANDLORDS 13 
Tenancy loses much of the menace ordinarily attributed to it in the 
cases where the tenant and landlord are related to each other either 
by blood or marriage. Of the landlords replying to the questionnaire, 
39 per cent had tenants who were related to them. Of the tenants 
reported by the landlords, 23 per cent were relatives of the landlords. 
In four-fifths of the cases the relationship was that of son or son-in-law 
of the landlord. Figure 18 shows for tenants farming in different parts 
of the country the percentage who were sons or sons-in-law of their 
landlords, the percentage who were related to their landlords in some 
other way, and the percentage who were not related. 
Comparing figures, on kinship for the various States, so far as they 
were covered by the study, it appears that Wisconsin tenants are 
more commonly related to their landlords than are tenants in any of 
the other areas studied, 42 per cent of the tenants being relatives of 
their landlords. About three-eighths of the tenants of Wisconsin 
farms are sons or sons-in-law of their landlords (Table 28) . 
In contrast to conditions in Wisconsin are the replies of landlords 
owning in the Alabama and Mississippi areas. In both of these areas 
the tenant class is predominatingly negro and the landlord class is 
predominatingly white. In both of these areas only 5 per cent of the 
tenants were reported by the landlords to be related to them and only 
3 per cent of the tenants were sons or sons-in-law of the landlords. 
PROPORTION OF TENANTS WHO RENT FARMS OWNED BY RELATIVES 
LOCATION 
OF 
STATES 
5 NORTHEASTERN 
5 NORTH CENTRAL 
4- GREAT PLAINS 
9 SOUTHERN 
24- STATES INCLUDING 
ABOVE GROUPS 
STUDY [NUMBER 
COUNTIES ! OF n 
TENANTS 
64- - 
- 3.0 
PER CENT OF TENANTS 
30 40 50 60 70 
100 
- 8,864-- 
Rent from Father or Father-in-Law 
X .'\ Rent from nonrelatives 
Other Relatives 
Fig. 18.— In the Northern States farm tenants are much more commonly the relatives of their landlords 
than is the case in the Southern States. The question of color has much to do with this. In many parts of 
the South where there is considerable tenancy, the landlords are mostly whites, whereas the tenants are 
negroes 
Dividing the landlords into two groups on the basis of whether they 
had one or two tenants or three or more tenants, it appears that a 
much smaller proportion of the tenants of the latter group are relatives 
of the landlords than is the case of tenants of the former group. 
13 State bulletins of the United States Census of Agriculture, 1925, show bv counties for Northern and 
Western States the percentage of cash tenants and other tenants related to their landlords. 
