One noteworthy result of these phases of the agricultural shift has been the appearance of "tenancy." Its rise and rapid increase in a new country like the United States, which in 1880 showed three-fourths of the farmers own ers, and to-day over one-third renters, naturally produced discussion and even alarm. It is most frequent in the South, its the pres ence of the negro occasions ts prevalence. It was rare in Colonial days, and even in the pio neering of the first Western States, for the owners of large land holdings sold to small owners. About the time of the Civil War ten ancy became a method of acquiring ownership as land values rose. It was regarded as a mere step, not as a status. The laborer or small in vestor could begin with enough equip and pay some or all of the cheap, but rising, price. As these conditions were intensified tenancy increased at an accelerated rate; the retiring farmer grew increasingly common; "cash ten ancy)) became frequent; but latterly ism" with "share in some form (now twice as common as the cash system) infre quently the "manager plan? characterizes the system. Fortunately there are but a few very large "estates," and "absentee landlordism)) has hardly appeared, the landlord seldom being out side the county, and often not farther than the nearest town. With free or cheap land prac tically gone, and rising values, the process of tenancy to ownership is increasingly difficult and long, but still many succeed and we have not yet reached the condition of some older countries where the laborer seldom attempts tenancy or the tenant ventures for ownership.
Inheritance has latterly become an important factor in the acquiring of land ownership. Farmers who are well-to-do usually assist their sons in acquiring land; often the family farm is added to, as the sons grow to maturity, and finally parceled out. The prevalence of part owned, part-rented farms is evidence of this process. The increase of this necessity and policy will give a new stability to the farm family and domestic relations, by giving mar riage, birth and death, as well as general social relationships, an economic sanction.
A better perspective on these features of the present transition stage show that the re pressive causes that tended to inertia, and even decadence, in agriculture, and virtually created a crisis, are already passing, and a new era to be safely entered upon. The year 1887 may be regarded as the beginning of this period of reorganization for it was characterized by the practical exhaustion of the public lands, the beginnings of a more intensive. agriculture in the East and Central States, a rapid rise in laud values, the development of irrigation and drain age schemes, and increased activity along all lines of educational and governmental help for the farmer. Conditions during the last decade of the last century were still difficult, despite many steps in rural progress, and never was discussion and agitation more active. The comprehensive appraisement of farm life and conditions by the Roosevelt °Commission on Country Life" in 1908 made the report that though in a general way the American farmer was never more prosperous, yet that agricul ture was °not economically so profitable as it is entitled to be for the labor and energy the farmer expends and the risks he assumes. 5 The social disadvantages resulting were also indi cated, and the three great needs were sum marized as (1) effective co-operation to put the farmer on a level with the organized inter ests with which he has to deal, (2) schools which will prepare children for country life, and (3) better means of communication.
Consequently the lines along which improve ment is being sought are (1) decreasing the isolation, and hence the uncooperative indi vidualism of the farmer by the extension of rural free delivery of mail, adding parcels post, increase of rural telephones, the continued im provement of roads, and increasing availability of the automobile, (2) the redirection of agri cultural education, to educate the boy and girl toward, rather than away from, the farm, and (3) efforts to increase agricultural credit facili ties, and to organize farmers for mutual benefit in matters of labor and marketing especially.
A discussion of fundamentals in the eco nomic and social life of the farmer was devel oped. It has been found that it is with refer ence to floating capital —labor and credit — that agriculture meets other forms of business in fundamental competition. °Farm manage ment"' has found new farms utilized to their most profitable capacity, for constant and wide spread lack of these two things. Throughout the history of American farming, labor has been lacking, partly due to the general scarcity of labor in a new and developing country, but also to the one-family, or one-man, farm tra dition. The advent of machinery rather made possible Mid-West agriculture without a corre sponding labor force, but did not lessen the need for it. During the years from 1880 to date the farm labor class has increased more than 40 per cent, while the proprietors increased only 35 per cent, and in the cereal States, where the machinery was most used, labor increased three-fold, as rapidly as the proprietors. , The question is not peculiar to agriculture. but, although the data are incomplete, it would seem that so far as wage increase relative to cost of living is concerned, the farm laborer has not made equal progress with other branches of labor. The passage of slave labor, and also of the traditional one-man farm, where the farmer's family constituted the labor force, has made the labor problem an imminent one, especially with the demands for increased production and the call to the various forms of intensive farming. The real solution is for the farmer to train farm artisans from the rising generation of farm youth not only of those at home but those from the landless generations of the older States, and many village youths. The farmer of the new agriculture cannot rely on the mere co-operation of neighbors, nor upon transient and occasional help, but must provide all-round-the-year employment, the possibility of a home and some social attrac tions for the laborer. The new agriculture calls loudly for a freer application of labor, and its attainment would benefit owners, tenants and labor alike. • So also is credit a great desideratum. It is needed to pay for labor and to conduct farm operations under the new system. Thousands of farmers are hampered for the lack of it, and lose each year many times the interest charge on the capital needed. Moreover credit is a most important means of acquiring land own ership. It is often more desirable to pay in terest than to pay rent, and this would be more frequently true but for the evil system of °double, taxation"' still prevalent.