UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
DEPARTMENT BULLETIN No. 1432 
Washington, D. C. 
September, 1926 
THE OWNERSHIP OF TENANT FARMS IN THE UNITED STATES 
By H. A. Turner, Assistant Agricultural Economist, Division of Land Economics 
and Land Utilization, Bureau of Agricultural Economics 
CONTENTS 
Page 
Need of specific information 1 
Methods and areas of study. 2 
Concentration of ownership (of rented farm 
real estate) 5 
Average size of holdings of rented farms, 
1900 and 1920 5 
Extent of ownership by landlords with 
three or more rented farms, 1900 and 1920 8 
Concentration of ownership in the various 
areas studied, 1920 10 
Concentration of ownership in 1900 18 
[Residence of landlords and extent of absentee- 
ism 20 
Absenteeism measured by relation of resi- 
dence and land ownership. 20 
Proportion of rented farms within 3 miles 
of residence of owner 25 
Extent to which farm landlords reside on 
farms 26 
Extent to which farm landlords own land in 
more than one county and S tate 27 
Page 
Residence of landlords, etc.— Continued. 
Absentee ownership of cash and share- 
rented farms compared, 1900 28 
Ages of owners of rented farms 29 
Present ages 29 
Age at the time of retiring from farming 31 
Comparison of ages of tenant and of owner 
farmers with ages of farm landlords 31 
Farm experience of landlords 33 
Occupations of owners of rented. farms 34 
Occupations as reported by owners them- 
selves 34 
Extent to which rented farms are owned by 
near-by owner farmers 36 
How ownership was acquired 37 
Changes in soil fertility 40 
Advice and supervision given by owners to their 
tenants 42 
Kinship of farm tenants to their landlords 43 
Children of farm landlords 44 
Summary _ 46 
NEED OF SPECIFIC INFORMATION 
Statistics on the tenure of farms have been gathered and pub- 
lished every 10 years beginning with the census of 1880. Concern- 
ing the ownership of rented farms, however, little of a statistical 
nature is available except as regards the degree of concentration of 
ownership and of absenteeism on the part of owners, as reported by 
the census of 1900. The present study was undertaken with a view 
to increasing the available information about the ownership of 
rented farm land, a very important phase of the farm-tenancy question. 
The extent to which farms are operated by persons other than the 
owners is indicated by the fact that the census of 1920 reported 
47.9 per cent of the farms to be operated by managers or by tenants 
who rented all or part of the land which they farmed. That the 
importance of farm tenancy and therefore of farm landlordism is 
increasing is indicated by the fact that, in 1920, 43.6 per cent of the 
value of the farm land and buildings of the country is estimated to 
have been rented from the owners by the farmers, whereas the cor- 
responding percentages were 39.5 in 1910 and 35.4 in 1900. 1 
1 U. S. Dept. Agr. Yearbook 1923, p. 515. 
102322°— 26 1 1 
