CHAPTER VII.
Landlordism.
In the majority of cases, landowners, who rent farms, reside in the same county in which the farm is located. The census reports for 1900 show that 67 per cent of farm lessors resided in the same county in which their land was located; 19 per cent, in the same state but not in the same county ; 8 per cent, outside of the state; and the remaining six per cent were not reported. These figures were not peculiar to Oregon alone, but represent conditions throughout the northern states of the Union.[1] Two-thirds of the farm lessors of this State reside in the same county as their tenants, with whom they come into close contact and maintain a personal relation. In other words, the majority of owners know their tenants personally and are in contact with the work of the farm, seeing what progress is being made. This is wholly a desirable condition and obviates much of the trouble that arises in other countries where con- tact between landlord and tenant is more distant.
The more remote the residence of the landowner from his farm, the larger is the proportion of cash tenancy employed instead of share tenancy. Of the 4,246 farms rented and owned by residents of the same county in which the farms are located, 2,671 were rented on shares; 1,575, for cash. Of the 1,234 rented farms owned by residents of the same state but not of the same county, 687 were rented on shares; 547, for cash ; of these owned by residents not of the same state, 195 were rented on shares ; 280, for cash. In the first case men- tioned, share tenancy had many more farms than cash tenancy ; in the second, cash and share were almost equal ; in the third, cash was much larger than share. As cash tenancy is increas- ing much faster than share tenancy, these figures seem to indi-
- ↑ U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, pp. 3 10-3 11.
