Who Owns the Agricultural Land in the United States?

Abstract

In attempting to answer the question Who owns the agricultural land of the United States? the census classification of owneroperated, tenant-operated, and manager-operated farms is of assistance. In the first division the ownership is in the hands of the tiller of the soil. In 1920 there were 636,508,324 acres in this class, of which 46I,I12,031 acres were under the control of owners operating an entire farm and 175,396,293 acres in the hands of farmers operating rented acres in addition to the land actually their property. From another standpoint, part of this area ought to be classed with the tenant-operated acreage, of which there are 265,193,415 acres. In the third class are 53,974,806 acres operated by hired managers.' Expressed in percentages, the land operated by both classes of owners composed 66.6 per cent of the farm land of the United States, the tenant area 27.7 per cent, and the manager-operated area 5.6 per cent. Owner-Operated Farm Land.-Of the land operated by owners only a small fraction is the property of the colored races. Figures for the acreage owned by various classes are not yet available for 1920, but in 191o the colored farmers owned only 3 per cent of the entire owner-operated land area of the United States and the proportion probably has not changed much since then.2 The acreage owned by foreign-born white farmers is not separated from that owned by white farmers in general. However, in 1910, 81.4 per cent of the foreign-born white farmers were owners. In order to get an estimate of the acreage owned, we may disregard the differences in acreage in owner-, tenant-, and manager-controlled farms and take 80 per cent of the 111,176,522 acres operated by all foreign-born farmers in I920.3 This gives us about 89,ooo,ooo acres, or 13Y2 per cent, of the owner-operated area under the control of foreign-born white farmers.