Vol. LXXIII.. Xo. 4239. 
NEW YORK. JANUARY 24. 1914. 
WEEKLY $1.00 PER YEAR. 
NOTES ON CORN-BELT FARMING. 
The Curse of Tenant Farming. 
GENERAL CONDITIONS.—During Thanksgiving 
week last Fall I had the opportunity of visiting for 
a day or two a locality in Illinois which is in the 
heart of the richest part of the corn belt, and 
v here farm practices are typical in many ways of 
much of the north central United States. I had not 
been in this section before, and several features of 
farm conditions which 
I observed struck me 
with perhaps more 
force than yrould have 
been the case had I 
been thoroughly famil¬ 
iar with the neighbor¬ 
hood beforehand. It 
shall be my purpose 
here to give some of 
the impressions which 
I secured on that trip. 
The soil is for the 
most part black, and 
as productive natural¬ 
ly as almost any soil 
on the globe, although 
patches of lighter, less 
productive soil occur. 
The chief crops are 
corn, broom corn, and 
oats, with some clover 
and a very little wheat. 
Live stock is scarce. 
The roads are of the 
original soil of the 
region, and are very 
poor in Winter, but 
good in Summer. Much 
of the farming is done 
by transient tenants. 
All of these features 
have to do with the 
status of agriculture 
in the region. The 
current farm practice 
is a good example of 
the prevalent “min¬ 
ing” system of farm¬ 
ing. The soil is looked 
on as a reservoir 
whose purpose is to 
produce corn or broom 
corn. Rotations are 
conspicuous chiefly by 
their absence, and 
when present are apt 
to be of the form corn, 
corn, oats; or corn, 
corn. oats, clover. The 
oats and clover crops 
are looked upon as a 
sort of soil medicine 
to prepare for another 
c r o p of corn. Soil 
which will not pro¬ 
duce at least two good crops of corn in succession 
is looked upon as “pretty durned poor,” to use the 
expression of one of the local farmers with whom 
1 talked. Further light is thrown on the attitude 
of the people to the different crops by the remark 
of a farmer’s boy, who said, in speaking of the 
rotation followed by one of the best farmers in the 
neighborhood, that he “farms” the land two years 
and then runs it. in oats and clover. Most of the 
corn and oats and much of the clover are sold di¬ 
rectly, a practice for which the prevailing tenant 
system and the lack of farm capital are at least 
partially responsible. 
ROADS AND MARKETING.—Not only are these 
products sold off the farm, but they are sold dur¬ 
ing the comparatively short time between harvest 
and the advent of bad weather in the Winter. One 
of the most significant facts in this neighborhood 
is the unimproved condition of the roads. These 
roads, as before mentioned, are of dirt, and often 
become impassable or nearly so in the Winter and 
Spring. As a consequence, crops must be marketed 
during the Fall, while the weather is comparatively 
dry. Profits are thereby lessened, and the working 
capital of the producers reduced. Improvements 
are discouraged and social intercourse is made diffi¬ 
cult. This locality (and many more similarly con¬ 
ditioned) needs a system of hard, smooth, all-the- 
year-around roads. Such a system would be very 
expensive in many places, and it will probably be 
many years before it will come; but the future of 
agriculture depends on it, and the cost is almost 
negligible in view of the value it would have. 
LACK OF CAPITAL.-—Another cause of the im¬ 
mediate marketing of crops is the lack of farm 
capital. Mr. A. has 1,000 bushels of corn which 
will bring him at present SO cents per bushel, or 
$800. If he can hold it a couple of months he can 
get 90 cents per bushel, or $900. He owes B. $800, 
however, which must be paid at once; and so the 
corn is sold. Such 
conditions occur re¬ 
peatedly. They dis¬ 
courage good practice 
in farming, they pre¬ 
vent the acquirement 
of many comforts in 
the home, and they 
limit the intellectual 
development of the 
farmer and his fam¬ 
ily. If the bankers 
could only recognize 
the harvested corn as 
good security, a loan 
might be made on it, 
and the farmer could 
retain the profit due 
to the rise in price. 
Another way in which 
the lack of farm capi¬ 
tal shows itself is in 
the lack of adequate 
improvements on most 
farms, especially 
where the farmer tills 
his own land — not 
that landlord-owned 
land is any the better 
improved, but that the 
motive for the failure 
to improve in this 
case must be some¬ 
thing other than the 
lack of capital. 
TENANT FARMING. 
—Intimately connect¬ 
ed with the problems 
already mentioned is 
the American system, 
or lack of system, of 
tenancy, as practiced 
in this locality. Cases 
differ in a great many 
characteristics, but 
among most of them 
may be found: (1) 
An absent landlord, 
and (2) a transient 
tenant; that is. one 
who stays but a year 
or two and then 
moves to another 
place. This system 
seems to combine all 
the bad points of all 
the systems in vogue to-day and to embody none of 
the good points of any. It is hard to localize the 
blame for this condition. Probably it should be 
laid to the system, rather than to either landlord 
or tenant; and the system should be considered as 
the natural result of the conditions under which 
the country has been developed. It must be changed 
before long, however, or much harm will result. 
Just now we have a landlord who squeezes the 
tenant in order to make a good profit on a large 
