Regulations of Farm Landlord-Tenant Relationships

Abstract

The most obvious solution for the problems of the farm tenant is to enable the tenant to become an owner. In America, indeed, this has generally been assumed to be the only solution. In the early days it was believed that the tenant would save his money and eventually purchase a farm.. Since it has been found that the optimism which assumed that this was a natural process was unjustified, a demand has arisen for assistance by the government to aid the tenant in attaining ownership. Beginning with the Homestead Act,2 where land was given to settlers, through the period where easier credit through such agencies as the Farm Credit Administration3 was regarded as the solution of the problem, government assistance in some form has been available to those who desired to own farms, but the American ideal of the owner-operated farm has been accompanied by the fact of a steady increase in the number of farms operated by tenants.4 The most recent study of the farm tenancy problem, the Report of the President's Committee on Farm Tenancy, recommended a double approach to the problem through more liberal federal aid to tenants to become owners and through state action to improve the condition of those who remained tenants by regulation of their relationships with their landlords.5 The first line of approach has already been adopted with the passage of the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act6 and the establishment of the Farm Security Administration. The second line of approach has been largely overlooked. It is only with this second approach to the problem that this paper is concerned. With regard to the number of farmers who may be immediately affected, it may well be that a regulatory program is of greater immediate importance than a farm purchase program. The funds available do not permit any immediate prospect of a * A.B., I930, LL.B., I934, Duke University. Member of the North Carolina Bar. On the staff of the Land Policy Division, Office of the Solicitor, United States Department of Agriculture. Author of A Note on the Civil Remedies of Injured Consumers (1I933) I LAW AND CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS, 67. 1 THE FUTURE OF THE GREAT PLAINS, REPORT OF THE GREAT PLAINS COMMITTEE (1936), 66. 2Homestead Act of May 20, i862, as amended, 43 U. S. C., ??i6i-302. Act of July I7, I9I6, 39 STAT. 360, as amended, I2 U. S. C., ??636-I I48a. 4FARM TENANCY, REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT'S COMMITTEE (Nat. Resources Comm. I937) Table V, Percentage of Farm Tenants, by States, I880 to I935, p. 96. (Hereinafter cited as FARM TENANCY REPORT.) 'FARM TENANCY REPORT, 11-20. 'Pub. No. 210o, 75th Cong., ist Sess. (I937).