Lower coast gazette., 1909-04-24

for we get better plants than by crowd
ing IN rows. Market Growers Journal.
Tenant Farming in The COrnbelt.
In a recent letter to the writer a
friend living in Central Illinois makes
these significant statements:
"The tenant system in Illinois spells
ruin to the soil. Rich as God left it
man is doing. all that he can to ruin it.
Land about me is now selling
for about $3.50 per acre and yields corn,
averaging about as to so bushels, oats
IS to 40 bushels, hay ! to 2 tons. The
common system of lease is for the ten
ant to give half his grain crop and to
pay for his meadow and pasture land
from Sd to Sc per acre. Under this
system the tenants have a hard time to
make two ends meet and the land is
being rapidly impoverished. The ten
ants do not haul out the slight amount
of n made till fall, when, Of
course, half its value has been leached
away. Would it not be fair for to re-
quire the tenants to keep manure drawn
out regularly during the winter, since
they have time for that at that season?
How would you suggest apportioning
the expense of use Of ground limestone,
potassium and phosphorus in a system
of tenant farming? Is it possible to do
these things we'll in a system if one
year leases be practicable?
The problem OF soil maintenance and
soil building under a system of short
term leases is difficult indeed of solu-
ton. 1t is we'll nigh impossible. 1t
would not be unjust to require tenants
to haul and spread the mi as fast
as made, except during cultivating sea-
son. On Woodland Farm all manures
as a rule are hauled out and put to use
before the growing season comes in the
spring. If we were working on one
year leases we might be unwilling to
do this, yet if all the tenants were ask
ed to do it they would all profit by the
good practice, since the n would
profit by the thrift Of his predecessor.
The greed of landlords is in large
part responsible for the rapid deterioa-
ton Of the soil, and they chiefly are to
blame. In our neighborhood very few
one-year leases are made, and many
tenants remain year after year upon
one farm, often accommodating enough
there to begin the purchase Of farms
for themselves. The better practice
here is for the farmer and the landlord
to form a partnership and carry on the
farm, thus sharing profits. In this way
the land owner helps supply needed
capital, and has a voice in directing
the farm operations. The custom is
for the two men, A the land owner, E
the tenant, to form a partnership thus;
A and B. equal partners, lease the farm
of A, paying a cash rent for it Of about
81 to Sc per acre. A supplies capital
sometimes, or they borrow money as
needed and Of course AS name on the
note is sufficient backing, Then to-
gether they conduct the farm, owning
the live stock, feeding cattle and sheep,
breeding horses, just as any partners
would. I think it is customary for B
to make no charge for his own labor or
management; on the other hand, he has
his house rent free and certain personal
privileges.
/ am certain that under this system
both parties make money, usually, and
the farms are. readily kept i'll a good
state of fertility, since it IS to the in
terest of the land owner to do this. and
being an equal partner as well as land
lord he sees to it. And of course, in
the long run, the tenant prospers more
than a system Of skinning the land each
year for what he could get out of it.
Such a system Of partnership presup-
poses an intelligent landlord willing to
-
give some personal attention to the de-
tails of management to his land. Is
any other sort of a man fit to own land
at all? Is not the ordinary landlord
who seeks only to wiring the last cent
from the soil, meanwhile content to lie
around in idleness in some county town,
a worse soil robber than the much
berated tenant? I think that he is
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