24.0

These statistics arouse fears that the class of independent farmers
operating their own farms is gradually giving way to a tenantry
in America. But in some respects the figures are misleading unless
carefully interpreted. The increasing proportion of tenants is due not
so much to owners falling into the class of tenants as to the
hired laborers rising into the class of tenants. The number of male
operating owners compared with all male workers (not merely with all
farms) has remained almost constant at about 42 per cent; while the
per cent of hired workers has decreased from 43.3 (in 1880) to 41.4
(in 1890) and to 34.6 (in 1900). Most hired men on farms are farmers'
sons; the city boy does not adapt himself readily to farm work. Most
hired men of native stock become tenants, and finally owners. Only 11
per cent of the hired workers in agriculture (in 1900) were over 35
years of age.

The landlord of a farm let to a tenant, especially to a share tenant,
is still to a large extent the general manager, controlling in a
large measure through the renting contract and by his oversight, the
operations of the farm. Older men find that letting the farm to
a share tenant is easier for them and gives better results than
continuing to operate the farm with hired labor. And it evidently
gives a man a somewhat higher status to become a tenant than to
continue to be a hired laborer. In the South this movement has taken
on large proportions in the breaking up of large plantations once
operated by the owner with hired labor, and now let in smaller lots
to operating tenants. Yet such a change appears, statistically, as a
decrease in the proportion of farms operated by owners. Despite these
somewhat reassuring facts, the problem of maintaining and increasing
operating ownership of farms in America is one deserving of the most
earnest thought and efforts. The best form of farm tenure is
not necessarily that giving the best immediate economic results.
Politically in a democratic nation, and sociologically in its effects
upon the size of families and the raising of healthy children, the
preservation of an independent American yeomanry is of fundamental
importance to the nation.

The problem is as difficult as it is important, and becomes more
difficult with the rise in the acreage value of lands and with the
economical size of farms, both calling for a larger investment to
become an owner. Changes in the system of taxation shoul