Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/744

712 Migration and agricultural expansion. [i890- although at a diminished rate ; and the movement is continuing in the same way as formerly, that is, by steady pressure pushing the whole moving population. The same men who settled the earlier frontiers still advance, selling their farms at a profit to those who come behind. The pioneer element is constantly drawn forward, and the less adventurous enter into their heritage. This also explains the nature of the emigration across the border into north-western Canada, which has called forth gloomy comment. The virgin soils of the Canadian wheat-belt afford greater opportunities; and the same class of men who left Iowa for Minnesota or Dakota now move on to the north once more ; but their places are continually filled. It is but a normal continuation of the general migratory movement. The number of farms has increased more rapidly than the population, and the total acreage of improved land somewhat less. On the other hand, the total farm -area has increased more rapidly than in any decade since 1860 a fact, however, less significant than it might appear, since there has been an addition to the nominal farm-area of 130,000,000 acres of unimproved land in the South-central and Western divisions. In this connexion reference may be made to the problem of farm tenure. The public was surprised to hear, after the census of 1890, that the ratio of farms worked by owners to farms worked by tenants was decreasing. The independent farmer had been so long lauded as the main prop of a democratic society that the revelation was startling. An even more marked change in the same direction has taken place in the last decade, the number of owning operators having fallen from 71 '6 per cent, in 1890 to 64'7 per cent, in 1900, while tenancy increased correspondingly from 28*4 per cent, to 35*3 per cent. Nevertheless, the gloomy forecasts to which the fact that over one-third of American farms were in tenants'* hands has given rise, do not seem to be warranted. We have already noted the reasons for farm tenancy in the cotton-belt, where it causes less alarm. In the North-west there have doubtless been some cases of men losing their farms by foreclosure and becoming tenants, while some farms have been bought up for investment ; but in the main the causes are different. In the first place, the break-up of the " bonanza " farms has come largely through division into tenant- holdings, which simply means the extension of the small-farm system. In the next place, the facts show that the number of operating owners compared with the total farm population has not diminished since 1880, while the comparative number of farm-labourers has diminished in a marked degree. This would seem to establish the inference that the increase in tenants is due to the rise of labourers rather than the fall of owners. This conclusion is further strengthened by a study of the relative ages of operating owners, tenants, and labourers. The striking fact appears that 90 per cent, of all the farm-labourers are under 35 years of age, over two-thirds of the tenants are under 45, while about