Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1918-11-26
Farm Renter at Mercy
of Greedy Landlord
By Frederic J. Haskin

Washington, D. c., Nov. ga vivid
glimpse into the life OF an American ten
ant-farmer is afforded by letter which
was among nany written IN r5sr onse TO
a couple of these articles, desc Thing
the administration plan for affording
the soldiers and others q chance to obtain
farms on small payments from the
government.
The Secretary of the Interior has stated
that one reason why something of this
kind must be done is that tenantrv had
increased in the United States 80 per cent
IN twenty years
This statement makes little impression
on the man who lives in the city He
says it is nothing to HIM. But it is. It
makes the difference between abundant
| food and food scarcity, such as we have
Just been experiencing.
For tenant tanner Is a discontented
farmer, and therefore a poor farmer. He
Is farmer who does not own the land he
farms, and therefore cares nothing about
He would as soon exhaust it as not, and
1t often does so. Tenant-farming has q
direct connection with the fields grown
up in weeds and scrub-pine and broom
sedge which YOU see out in the country,
and those fields gone wild have a direct
connection with the prices you pay for
food
TENANT F.RMER's STORY.
But let the tenant farmer tell her own
story For this letter is from a woman
living IN an eastern state.
81 am glad YOU are talking IN behalf
of the farmer who wants to buy farm, =
she writes, Il only wish more would talk
for the farmers who want to buy farms.
We are farmers living on a rented farm,
and We are getting discouraged because
since the war started, landlords want
everything. We moved on this farm the
fourth of April last, and we all worked on
the farm that were able to work-my
husband, my SON fifteen years old. and
myself. But We did not clear one dollar
per day.
Believe me, our landlord was so close
We had no chance to be patriotic. We
farmed for the hall (of what was produced)
| the landlord TO find (furnish) the seed.
But he gave us a field for corn that had
TO be cleared Of young locust trees. He
would not give us another field He
wanted the locust trees cleared off. Ny
husband and son worked two weeks clear
ing, got disgusted and quit and only got
a few acres cleared Put this out in corn
and will give the landlord half the of crop,
which is very small. Had the clearing
to do for nothing-no pay.
rEFusEp GARDEN PATCH.
II asked the landlord for garden
patch, One patch asked for he said was
too poor Then | asked him for a small
patch where the ground was good, but he
said it was too rich And there are no
chicken coops ON the place. We have
- oLs L.
he does not want the tenant to keep any
cattle. He says he cannot give pasture
free | love to work with poultry and
cows. was born and raised on farm
And we all love TO work on a farm pro-
vided we can make a living. But we are
going to move as soon as we can. We
cannot make q living ON this farm.
''There is farm for sale near here
125 acres Owner wants S., 900 cash
We would like to buythis farm ut we have
only Sl0O that my son earned out working
on spare time And there are no federal
land banks here that we could borrow
from The county agent and myself and
a few Others are Interested, but II takes
ten persons to organize(a farm loan as
sociation- and We cannot get that many
interested, and city banks charge too
much interest and don't give long enough
time. Because we are poor no one Is
willing to help us. But we are honest
and work hard Ii We don't get home
on farm of ctr own, we will have 20 quit
farming But we don't want % so to
town Mo have denicd ourselves In order
90 stay on farm. | wish there was
way for us 90 set that farm ior sale
Can you give me sdyice how 10 get che
money now"