Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1901-02-28
LANDLORD AND TENANT.
Paper Read at the Farmers Institute
by ]. c. Bonweli.


How can our farms be leased so as to
secure equal justice to both landlord
and tenant? This problem has been
agitating the minds of both parties to
the question in this part of our great
state for perhaps the last twenty years
or rather as long as the county has been
settled. Various plans have been sug-
gested and tried, in some cases with
satisfactory results to both parties and
at other times the same plan with
other renters the results have been far
from pleasant and sometimes very
disagreeable.
In order to secure equal justice, strict
honesty and integrity between the
parties is imperative and cooperation
to some extent is necessary to attain
the last results. One great difficulty
however, here presents itself to the
landlord, owing to the fact that a
large number of the honest, intelligent,
wide awake tenants soon become land
owners themselves and cease to be
tenants. Therefore the problem must
be met and worked out with the mater
ial that presents itself for use. Select
ing the best we can get and holding on
to those who prove satisfactory as long
as possible. The time may come in
the future of our country when the
larger portion of our people will be
tenants, but we will let the future take
care of itself and deal with the present.
The lot of the average tenant farmer
in this part of Iowa is not an enviable
one. Farming land with poor improve
ments and without any thing conven-
lent about the premises to make life
pleasant or comfortable, in many in
stances without barn, yard or pasture
for his stock unless he makes or builds
them at his own expense. This added
TO the average rent makes it impossible
for many tenants to have these many
necessary improvements where the
landlord refuses to furnish them. This
condition OF affairs makes the tenant of
that class of landlords discontinued,
dispondent, rowing and sometimes
dishonest, deceptive and unreliable.
i take it for granted that as large or
larger per cent of tenant farmers are
honest in their dealings and honorable
in the keeping of their contracts as any
other class of people, and it is perhaps
this hard lot and bad treatment by one
class of landlords in the first place that
occasions some of them to seem to care
but little if the landlord fails to get all
his rent. In my own experience / have
rsed several different ways with diff
ferent tenants, sometimes with satisfac-
tory results but at other times the
reverse, but l want to say here that /
have no use for lazy or dishonest ten
ant. They are very unsatisfactory to
say the least. think the most reason
able and practical way of doing justice
to both parties is for landlord to make
comfortable and necessary improve
ments on his land so occupied, where
it has not already been done, that the
farm life Of the tenant may be comfor-
table and home like and then if the ten
ant is the right kind of man he will
take pride in keeping the improvements
in repair and make a tenant landlord
would want to keep as long as he
would want to stay.
There are several ways Of arriving at
the ratios of rent from tenant to land
lord for the use of farm land to meet
out justice to both parties, being gov
erned by the productive capacity of
the farm. l think to be fair and equal
a division of the crop if done honestly
at the ratio of one third for landlord
and two thirds for tenant or two-tifths
to three-ffths according to the produc-
tiveness of the land, and cash rent for
pasture or meadow land, feed lots and
orchard at rate per acre the landlord
can stand and the tenant afford. 1t is
easier for the renter and usually more
satisfactory for the landlord, or when
practical to stock the farm by both
parties, the tenant to farm the land,
care for the stock, keep up repairs and
divide the proceeds of the farm after
paying taxes and necessary expenses
at ratio that would make The labor
and capital share equal. But the sue
cess of this plan would depend largely
if not entirely upon the industry, hon
esty and integrity of the tenant.