The news in this publi
cation is released for the
press on receipt.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published Weekly by the
University of North Caro
lina for its University Ex
tension Division.
NOVEMBER 30, 1921
CHAPEL HHX, N. C.
VOL. VIII, NO. 4
, B. C. Braiiaoti, S. H, Hohbs, Jr., L. R. Wilson, E. W. Knisht, D. D. Carroll,'J. B. EuUItt, H, W, Odum. Entered as aeoond-olasa matter November 14.191,1, at the Postoffloe at Chapel Hill, N. C., under the act ot August 24, 1918.
FARM TENANCY IN THE U. S.
The North Carolina Club at the Uni
versity is making a study of home and
farm ownership, and at its first meet
ing the facts about farm tenancy in the
United States and its increase since
.1880 were presented by Prof. S. H.
Hobbs, Jr. We are here giving a sum
mary of the facts brought out at this
meeting.
During the last forty years farm ten
ancy has made staggering increases in
the United States—in particular in the
South, the Middle West, and the Lake
Shore States. We have been moving
rapidly as a nation out of a land of home
and farm ownership into a land of home
and farm tenancy. Forty years ago just
one-fourth of all the farms in the Unit
ed States were operated by tenants. To
day 38.1 percent are operated by tenants.
Every decade has ushered in an increased
tenancy rate. During these forty
years the number of farms operated by
owners increased only 31.5 percent,
while the farms operated by tenants in
creased 139.5 percent, or more than four
times as fast. Every geographic area
in the United States, except the New
England States which long ago moved
out of agriculture into manufacture, has
_• 1 Pan-aTit rat.ins- Thfi
increased in farm tenant ratios. The
increase has been from around one mil
lion farm tenants forty years ago to
nearly two and a half million farmer
tenants today.
Farm Tenant Increases
Farm tenancy has never been a prob
lem in New England because her soils
and crops are unsuited to tenant farm
ing. Excepting Maine, it is not an im
portant agricultural region and farm
tenancy has remained static throughout
the last forty years, standing still at
7.5 percent. The same is largely true of
the Middle Atlantic states where tenant
farmers have always cultivated about
one-fifth of the farms. In the Pacific
Coast and Eocky Mountain states, ten
ancy ratios have risen or fallen slightly
as farming has been profitable or un
profitable. In the great agricultural
region of the Middle West and the Great
Lakes, farm tenancy has steadily in
creased, the rise being from one-fifth
of all farms operated by tenants forty
years ago to nearly one-third at the
present time. In four of the Corn Belt
states the tenancy ratios now run be
yond two-fifths—in Kansas, Iowa, Il
linois, and Nebraska.
Tenancy in the South
The farm tenant problem is a serious
one in any state or county, and the in
creased ratios of tenancy are beginning
at last to attract attention in America.
If it is a serious problem elsewhere it is
an alarming problem in the South, for
it is in the South that tenancy has made
most rapid increases both in the number
of tenants and in the percent of farms
operated by tenants. Forty years ago
just a little more than one-third of all
farms in the sixteen Southern states
were cultivated by tenants. To-day ex
actly one-half of all the farms in the
South are operated by tenants, and in-
cotton and tobacco counties nearly
three-fourths of the farmers are tenants.
The farms operated by tenants in the
South number 1,591,059 and these land
less farmers with their families number
eight million souls.
American farm tenancy is largely a
Southern problem for it is in the South
that almost exactly two-thirds of all the
tenants of the entire nation are con
centrated. To be exact, 64.5 percent
of all farm tenants in the United States
are located in the sixteen Southern
states. And the great bulk of these
are massed in the eight hundred coun
ties that produce cotton and tobacco,
the two best tenant crops known to man
anywhere on earth.
A White Man’s Problem
Contrary to the prevailing notion.
Southern farm tenancy is a white man's
problem; not so for every Southern.state,
but so for the South as a whole. In the
thirteen states that produce cotton as a
cash crop, 61.5 percent of all tenants
are white farmers and only 38.5 percent
are negro farmers. If the other three
states were included the white tenant ra
tios would be even higher. There are 154
in the South, and with their families they
outnumber the negro farm tenant popu
lation by 800,000 souls. In eleven of
the sixteen Southern states there are
more white than negro tenants. In the
great cotton state of Texas nearly four-
fifths of all the farm tenants are
white.
The Facts in Carolina
In North Carolina farm tenancy is
concentrated in the cotton and tobacco
counties. It is mainly an eastern prob
lem. But in North Carolina just as in
the South as a whole it is a white man’s
problem. The white tenants outnumber
the negro tenants by 10,000. Their
families counted, the white farm ten
ant population is 50,000 greater than
that of the negro. As the years pass,
the ratio steadily works against the
whites and in favor of the negroes, for
throughout the South negroes are in
creasing in the ratios of farm owner
ship while the whites show a steady in
crease in farm tenancy. In other words,
the negroes are moving into farm
ownership, and the whites into farm
tenancy. Thus the problem is increas
ingly a white man’s problem. In Vir
ginia more than three-fourths of all the
negro farmers own their farms. In
North Carolina more than a third of the
negro farmers are owners, not tenants.
During the last census period their gain
in farm ownership was small, but it
has been startling during the last forty
years.
What the Decreases Mean
The fatal law seems to be that the
more populous and prosperous an agri
cultural area is, the fewer are the farm
ers who own the land they cultivate. A
decreasing tenant ratio means, it seems,
so far in America, a dwindling agricul
ture. Tenancy thrives where land is rich
and farming is profitable. It loses out
elsewhere. Poor soil areas will produce
neither crops nor tenants. The New Eng
land states have long been of decreasing
importance in agriculture and so tenancy
has been static. During the last ten
years the tenant rate for the United
States increased just a little over one
percent, and people spread the good tid
ings that tenancy was solving itself.
And so it is in some regions, for the
farm tenants are moving off the farms
and into towns, which accounts for the
increased ratio of farm owners. For
the first time in our history the farm
population of the United States showed
an actual loss of farmers during'a cen
sus period. Between 1910 .and 1920,
twenty-four states lost in the number
of farms arid twenty-three states, ex
actly the same states with only three
exceptions, lost in the number of farm
tenants. The loss in the number of
farms was due to the exodus of farm
tenants. Just two southern states de
creased in the ratio of farm tenants
and they are the only states in the South
that also decreased in the number of
farms during the last ten-year period.
An increase in tenantry means an in
crease in the importance of agriculture.
A decrease in tenantry means a dwind
ling agriculture, fewer farms and less
land in cultivation.
It is true in this state, for the great
agricultural region of the east made a
great gain in tenancy while in the pied
mont and mountain regions tenancy de
clined. There the tenants in great
swarms move off the farms and into
the manufacturing towns and cities.
They haved changed their lot from farm
tenants to wage earners in mill villages,
and today the piedmont and mountain
counties have fewer farms, and farm
ing is not relatively as important as it
was ten years ago. Absorbing farm
tenants in manufacturing enterprises
throughout the South, as in-the western
part of this state, seems to be one of
the main solutions of the farm tenant
problem. It has worked to wonderful
advantage in the mid-state and western
half of North Carolina. The South will
decrease in farm tenancy when we
move over into industrial development
and our tenants become laborers in man
ufacturing establishments.
We need a better balance between
agriculture and manufacture, so that
our tenants can become a farm asset
instead of a liability. Or we need fun
daraental changes in the social-econom
A SACRED TRUST
Walter H. Page
The most sacred thing in the Com
monwealth and to the Commonwealth
is the child, whether it be your child
or the child of the dull-faced mother
of the hovel. The child of the dull
faced mother may, for all you know,
be the most capable child in the
state. At its worst, it is capable of
good citizenship and a. useful life, if
its intelligence be quickened and
trained.
Several of the strongest personal
ities that were ever born in North
Carolina were men whose very
fathers were unknown. We have all
known two such, who held high places
in church and state. President Eliot
said a little while ago that the ablest
man that he had known in his many
years' connection with Harvard Uni
versity was the son of a brick ma
son.
The child, whether it hjfve poor
parents or rich parents, is the most
valuable undeveloped resource of the
state.— Rebuilding Old Common
wealths.
principle of taxing land values.
Elsewhere in this issue we present
farm tenancy ratios by states in 1880
and 1920.
xios wouiQ oe even lugiiei. a.ucic aic ^ ... ,
348 more white than negro farm tenants ics of land tenure—in particular in the
FARM TENANCY IN CAROLINA
The problem of increasing farm ten
ancy in North Carolina was interesting
ly discussed Monday, night in a report
by A, M. Moser on The Landless Farm
er in North Carolina, at a meeting of
the North Carolina Club, which is this
year making a study of farm and home
ownership in the state and nation.
Farm tenancy, it was shpwn by Mr.
Moser, has been steadily on the increase,
and this fact together with the social
and economic consequences of tenancy
makes this problem one of great con
cern.
Every census taken in North Caro
lina since 1880 has shown farm tenancy
to be increasing in the state. The per
centage of tenancy has steadily climbed
until in 1920 nearly half or 43.5 percent
of our farmers were tenants. In that
year we had 16,038 more farms in the
state than in 1910. Of this increase,
10,170 farms were operated by tenants,
and only 6,056 farms were operated by
owners. And the white farm tenants
of North Carolina now outnumber the
negro farm tenants by more than 10,000.
Farm tenancy is found mainly in the
cotton and tobadco sections. It has
been found that in proportion as a coun
ty produces cotton or tobacco, just in
that proportion will it be a tenant area.
In Scotland county, the leading cotton
county of the state, size considered,
four of every five farms are cultivated
by tenants. Edgecombe county with
79.4 percent and Greene with 78.2 per
cent are close competitors.
The economic and social results of
tenancy are worse than most people
realize. Moving from place to place,
as most of them do each year or every
few years, tenant farmers are rarely
ever able to accumulate property and
to rise out of tenancy into ownership.
It is true that they create considerable
wealth, but from various causes it slips
through their fingers, and when they
approach old age most of them have
very little more than when they started.
People who are constantly on the move,
who never stay at any one place long
enough to form local affiliations, are little
likely to take enough interest in schools
and churches to receive much benefit
from them. This is said to be responsible
for much or most of the illiteracy in
! North Carolina. Tenancy and illiteracy
• go hand in hand. Tenancy breeds illit
eracy, illiteracy breeds tenancy, and
both breed poverty. We shall always
! have illiteracy and poverty in our country
i areas so long as we have croppers in
. swelling numbers. These and othef
: social problems concern our white and
black farm tenants in the main. ^ With
their families they now number more
than 600,000 souls, and the white ten
ant outnumbers the negro tenant popu
lation 50,000 or more in North Carolina.
A table showing (1) the ratios of
farm tenancy by counties in 1920, and
(2) the increases or decreases during
the census period 1910-20 was published
in the University News Letter, Vol
ume 7, No. 36.
What About Your County?
This table enables thoughtful people
to know the extent of this evil in their
home counties, to know how their coun
ties rank in this particular, and to ver
ify or correct the conclusions of Mr.
Moser.
Are there fewer tenants in your
county? If so, are there fewer farms,
is there therefore less land in cul
tivation and a larger number of wilder
ness acres? Does decreasing tenancy
mean a dwindling agriculture?
Does excessive tenancy mean (1)
farms falling into waste in soil fertil
ity, dwellings, out-houses, fences, and
the like? Does it mean (2) small finan
cial support by farm tenants for schools
and churches, along with poor attend
ance, and therefore chronic illiteracy
and decreasing church influence in white
tenant areas? In other words, does it
menace the country church and coun
try school alike? (3) Does excessive
negro tenancy mean the exodus of white
farm families and increasing negro
farm ownership in certain areas? Where,
for instance? (4) Does excessive ten
ancy, white and black, mean instable
and therefore irresponsible citizenship
—reckless disregard for law and order,
moonshine distilling and boot-legging,
crimes of violence, manslaughter, lynch
ing and the like? (5) It produces great
volumes of crop wealth—high averages
per acre, but low averages per worker.
Does it also produce wealth that does
not and cannot remain in any large part
in the hands of the producers? Or even
in the area in which it is produced
say, with the traders and bankers
the local towns? In other words, farm
tenancy is a wealth-producing system,
but is it also a wealth-retaining sys
tem? If not, why not? (6) Does ex
cessive farm tenancy breed increasing
social problems—illiteracy, poverty, ill
health, feeblemindedness, and the like,
and lay increasing burdens on state and
local treasuries for almshouses and out
side poor relief, public health, and pub
lic hospital and nursing service, court,
jail, and chain gang costs? And so on
and on.
Mr. Moser will be glad to hear from
anybody in the state who thinks clear
headedly about the economic, social, and
civic consequences of farm tenancy in
North Carolina. Write him, if you will.
-J. G. Gullick.
Three hundred bales of cotton were
placed in this pool. Individually the
growers had been offered from 3 to 7
cents a pound for the cotton on their
local market. The entire lot was classed
by representatives of the federal
bureau and grade cards issued to the
owners. The samples were then for
warded to Dallas and the cotton trade
invited to bid. The lot was sold at 10.25
cents a pound average.
On the classification made by the Bu
reau’s representative the pool averaged
75 points off Middling. The Middling
spot price at Dallas on the day of the
sale was 10.35 cents. The growers’ ac
counts were settled on the basis of the
grade cards issued for the individual
bales, using the Dallas differences for
the day. —Press Service, U. S. Dept,
of Agriculture.
POOLING COTTON IN TEXAS
How demonstration work in coopera
tive cotton marketing is aiding farmers
during the current season is illustrated
by the story of a pool formed in Texas,
as reported by the Bureau of Markets
and Crop Estimates of the United
States Department of Agriculture. i
CHAPEL HILL CONFERENCE
You misssd something if you failed to
attend the town and county conference
at the University of North Carolina the
last of September, and in which the
National Municipal League cooperated.
It was a regional conference. Mat
ters of general interest were discussed
from a local viewpoint. But the man
from another state felt right at home, ‘
partly because of the mellow hospitality
of the natives and partly because he
recognized the troubles of North Caro
lina towns and counties as old acquaint
ances.
Those present came prepared to
search deeply the soul of North Caro
lina and to act on the evidence disclosed.
The state superintendent of public in
struction, Dr. E. C. Brooks, unmerci
fully probed the financial methods of
the counties. The conditions he dis
closed were nothing to make a Tar Heel
feel proud. They do feel determined,
however, and at the last session of the
conference completed an organization
designed for immediate action through
education and legislation. They intend
to modernize North Carolina county gov
ernment.
Mr. Arthur N. Pierson, author.pf the
New Jersey finance acts, made two
talks and submitted to long cross ex
aminations. The cities are in trouble
and they are inclined to distrust their
new, ex^cellent finance act. Pierson’s
plea was, “Boys, don’t let them repeal
it.’’ The only way out is through strict
adherence to sound business practice.
We can expect progress from North
Carolina. We shall be grievously dis
appointed if it is not forthcoming.
Professor E. C. Branson has been the ‘
leading spirit through the North Caro
lina Club, which was organized seven
years ago to study the home state. The
club has turned out some excellent re
ports on local conditions. A weekly
News Letter goes to more than 20,000
addresses. The new School of Public
Welfare, under Professor H. W. Odum,
will attend to the social problems of the
towns and counties. There is a fine
spirit of cooperation between the Uni
versity and the public officials through
out the state.—Municipal Quarterly Re-
FARM TENANCY IN THE UNITED STATES
Showing Tenancy Ratios by States in 1880 and 1920
Based on the Reports of the Census Bureau
In 1880 the farms in the United States cultivated by tenants were 1,024,601;
in 1920, the number of tenant farms was 2,454,746. In forty years the number
was multiplied by nearly two and a half. During these forty years the ratio of
tenant farms to all farms increased from 25.5 percent to 38.1 percent.
Department of Rural Social Science, University of North Carolina
Percent of farms
Rank State
' Percent of farms
operated by tenants
operated by tenants
1920
1880
1920
1880
1
Maine
4.2....
... 4.3
25
Florida
... 25.3,...
... 30.9
2
New Hampshire.
6.7....
... 8.1
26
North Dakota.
... 26.6....
... 3.9
3
Massachusetts ..
7.1....
... 8.2
26
Virginia
... 25.6,...
... 29.5
4
Connecticut
8.5-...
. . 10.2
Missouri
.... 28.8,...
... 27.3
6
Nevada
9.4 ...
... 9.7
29
Maryland
... 28.9....
... 31.0
6
Utah
10.9.'...
... 4.6
30
Ohio ... ....
... 29.5....
... 19.3
11.3....
... 5.3
31
Indiana
... 32.0....
... 23.7
8
Vermont
11.6....
... 13.4
32
Kentucky
... 33.4....
... 26.4
9
New Mexico....
12.2....
8.1
33
South Dakota.
... 34.9.,..
... 3.9
10
Wyoming
12.5....
... 2.8
34
Delaware.....
... 39.3,...
... 42.4
11
Wisconsin
14.4....
... 9.1
35
Kansas
... 40.4,...
... 16.3
12
Rhode Island ...
15.5....
... 19.9
36
Tennessee....
... 41.1....
... 34.5
13
Idaho
15.9....
... 4.7
37
Iowa
... 41.7...
... 23.8
14
W. Virginia
16.2 ...
... 19.1
38
Illinois
... 42:7....
... 21.4
15
Michigan
17.7..'..
... 10.0
39
Nebraska
... 42.9....
... 18.0
16
Arizona
18.1....
... 13.2
40
North Carolina.
... 43.5. ..
.. 33.5
17
Washington ....
18.7....
... 7.2
41
Oklahoma:.,..
... 51.0....
18
Oregon
18.8....
... 14.1
42
Arkansas
... 51.3....
... 30.9
19
New York.
19.2....
... 16.5
43
Texas
... 53.3....
... 37.6
20
California
21.4....
... 19.8
44
Louisiana ...
... 57.1....
... 35.2
21
Pennsylvania...
21.9....
... 21.2
45
Alabarna
... 57.9....
... 46.8
22
New Jersey
23.0....
... 24.6
46
Mississippi ....
... 60.1....
... 43.8
22
Colorado
. 23.0....
... 13.0
47
S.^ Carolina ...
... 64.5....
... 50.3
24
Minnesota
24.7....
... 9.2
48
Georgia
... 66.6....
... 44.9