Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1914-02-25
the cos1l,Es1 THING IN IOWA.


c. E. Wilson's letter to the Times
Republican in yesterdays issue is in
directly Illuminating as to farm condi-
tons in Iowa as regards the import
ant matter OF leaseholds In one
nelghborhood the whole population
seems to be shifting, so large is the
list of those changing farms. One man
goes to the farm another leaves. Marcn
in Iowa IS like the dance call Every
body promenade" right hand to part
ner and grand right and left"
Now these are good farmers who
! are moving, most Of them. They arc
moving because they think they can do
better The landlord is letting them
go because he thinks he can do better.
Some of them and their landlords have
found that they can not get along. The
farmer has ways that the landlord
| doesn't like. the landlord refuses to
make any improvements, wants the
highest cash rent for a farm more or
less run down, any Of hundred rea-
sons are responsible for the shift and
shutting between the farms; and in
most cases there isn't good enough
reason for the tenant to go to the ex-
pense Of moving or for the landlord to
suffer the change.
In the end it all comes out of the
farm. The short lease system is losing
Iowa more than the good seed corn
campaign added. This shifting back
and forth is a loss to the landlord, the
tenant and to the state. In the aggre-
I gate it is an appalling loss if it could
! be put into figures.
| That lit has been rented for the last
! ten years" ought not to cheaper a farm
from $40 to $50 an acre in Iowa. But
| it does. The buyer assumes that the
rented farm is run down." He expects
it to be short of Improvements, III
cared for and drained to a large degree
of its immediate fertility. Now there
are good farmers among tenant farm
ers, the fact is that a man must be
pretty fair farmer to make money
on rented farm. The fault isn't so
much in the tenant as in the stipula-
ton. not written into the lease, that
he must get as much as he can in the
shortest time possible and let the sue
ceeding tenant take his chance. And
the one year or three year renter gets
his. He must. 1t is his only way
Some one is skinning the farm he is
to rent later. So he grabs all he can
while he can and saves a stake for a
purchase in the northwest or. in
| Canada
Short leases are largely responsible
for the shortage of Iowa population fig
| ures. Not politics. Politics never
drove any man away from a good
thing and politics isn't moving any
satisfied farmer out Of Iowa Not on
his prosperous life. Men and especially
women tire Of moving on the first of
abiding place and a chance to do their
best in the best way. The short lease
merely makes its holder a sort Of pro-
noted farm hand. seeking a new lob
annually. And the class of tenant
farmers worth while do not like it.
A ten year lease is short enough. A
tenant unfit to lease a farm for ten
years isn't fit to farm it one wear.
The landlord who must have new
tenant each spring because he wants It
| all and refuses to spend a dollar on
buildings and Improvements isn't fit to
! own good Iowa farm. And there isn't
a good woman among the wives of the
tenant farmers Of this state who hasn't
the Inherent right to at least a ten
year permanency Of occupation in one
| home.
| 1t is time tenant farmers and land
owners ceased the bivouac method, It
( costs too much. 1t drives away too
many good men. 1t clleapens and dis
credits too many farms. 1t shortens
the crops, limits the livestock. takes
too much out of the Iowa poke tbook.
The short lease is poor business. It
doesn't belong with 5000 land. Quit it,
Its the costliest thing in Iowa.