Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 286, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1915 — THE SHIFTING TENANT [ARTICLE]

THE SHIFTING TENANT

Agricultural Schools Should Work to Keep Farmers’ Bone on Land. Specialists of the department of agriculture who have been making an Investigation Into the use of land by high schools In tegjchlng agriculture and In the encouragement of boys to carry on supervised home projects, make the # following suggestions ss to how the agricultural instructor may help to solve the serious shifting-ten-ant problem. It can safely be assumed that the average boy leaves school at 18 years of age. From the best Information available the average farmer does not start farming on his own account until he Is somewhere between 25 and 30 years of age. In other words, there Is a period of a fanner’s life, when he Is between 18 and 30 years of age, when he Is not working on his own farm nor is he his own master. It would seem that wherever the home project method has been Introduced an effort should be made to follow up the boy and, if possible, arrange in some way so that he continues his home-project work and gradually become a partner with his father in the farm business. This feature should be a part of the extension work of die agricultural instructor. Farmers are recruited from two sources, from the sons of farmers and the sons of agricultural laborers. In going over the original census schedules for farmers of lowa county, Wls* this rather Interesting fact developed that where the tenant and landlord had the same surname the tenant had been on the farm that he was on the day the census was taken for a tnuch longer period than where their suf* names were different. It was found that 31 per cent of the cash tenants who were related to the owner had been tenants on the farms which they were on, at the census date, for two years or less, while the per cent for those where no relationship existed was 65. For share tenants the figures were 50 and 80 per cent respectively. In other words where there Is relationship there' is less of the shiftingtenant problem than where relationship does not exist. From other records it was learned that of the total years a man had been a tenant, ho had been a tenant on the farm where he was at the time the records were taken 76 per cent of the total time when there was no relationship. The returns also indicated that where relationship existed 33 per cent had attended high school, but where there was no relationship only 18 per cent had attended high school. In other words, if through the school the farmers could be made to take an Interest In the agricultural training of the boy and they could be established in a partnership relation, the shifting-ten-ant problem would be partially solved.