V. I.

Lenin

New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture

PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America

8. Displacement of Small by Big Enterprises.
Quantity of Improved Land

We have examined the major forms of the development of capitalism in agriculture, and have seen how extremely varied
they are. The most important are: the break-up of the slave-holding latifundia in the South; the growth of large-scale
extensive farming operations in the extensive area of the North;
the most rapid development of capitalism in the intensive area
of the North, where farms are, on the average, the smallest. The
facts incontrovertibly prove that in some cases the development
of capitalism is indicated by an increase in farm acreage and in
others by an increase in the number of farms. In view of such a
state of affairs we learn nothing from the returns on average
farm acreages summarized for the country as a whole.

What then is the net result of the various local and agricultural peculiarities? An indication is given by the data
on hired labour. The growing employment of hired labour is a
general process transcending all these peculiarities. But in the vast majority of civilized countries
agricultural statistics, paying tribute, intentionally or
otherwise, to prevailing bourgeois notions and prejudices,
either fail to furnish any systematic information on hired
labour at all, or give it only for the most recent period (e.g.,
German Agricultural Census of 1907), so that it is impossible to
make a comparison with the past. I shall show in detail
elsewhere that in the elaboration and tabulation of the returns
of hired labour American statistics changed markedly for the
worse between 1900 and 1910.

The most common and most popular method of presenting statistical summaries in America and most other countries is to
compare big and small farms by acreage. I shall now proceed to a
consideration of these data.

In grouping farms by acreage, American statisticians take total
acreage and not just the improved area, which would, of course,
be the more correct method, and is the one employed by German
statisticians. No reason is given why seven groups (under 20
acres, 20 to 49, 50 to 99, 100 to 174, 175 to 499, 500 to 999,
1,000 and over) are used to tabulate the returns of the 1910
Census in the United States. Statistical routine must apparently
have been of paramount consideration. I shall call the
100-to-174-acre group—medium, because it consists mostly of
homesteads (the official size of a homestead is 160 acres), and
also because land holdings of this size usually give the farmer
the greatest degree of “independence” and require the least
employment of hired labour. The groups above that I shall call
large or capitalistic because, as a general rule, they do not
manage without hired labour. Farms with 1,000 acres and over I
shall regard as latifundia—of which three-fifths is unimproved land in the North, nine-tenths, in the South, and
two-thirds, in the West. Small farms are those with less than
100 acres; how much economic independence they have is evident
from the fact that in three groups, from the bottom up, 51%, 43%
and 23% of the farms respectively, are recorded as having no
horses. It goes without saying that this characteristic should
not be taken in an absolute sense and should not he applied to
all divisions or to localities with specific conditions without
a special analysis.

I am unable to give here the returns for all the seven groups in
the main sections of the United States, for this would overload
the text with an excessive number of figures. I shall, therefore, merely outline the basic distinctions between the
North, the South and the West, and give the full returns only
for the United States as a whole. We should not lose sight of
the fact that three-fifths (60.6%) of all the improved land, is
in the North; less than one third (31.5%), in the South; and
under one-twelfth (7.9%), in the West.

The most striking distinction between the three main sections is
that the capitalist North has the smallest number of latifundia, although their number, their total acreage, and
their improved acreage are on the increase. In 1910, 0.5% of the
farms in the North were of 1,000 acres and over; these big farms
had 6.9% of all the land and 4.1% of the improved land. The
South had 0.7% of such farms, with 23.9% of the total acreage
and 4.8% of the improved acreage. In the West there were 3.9% of
such farms, owning 48.3% of the total acreage, and 32.3% of the
improved acreage. This is a familiar picture: the slave-holding
latifundia of the South, and the even vaster latifundia of the
West, the latter being partly the foundation of the most
extensive stock-raising, and partly reserve tracts of land
occupied by “settlers” and resold or (less often) leased to real
farmers improving the “Far West”.

America demonstrates clearly that it would be imprudent to
confuse the latifundia with large-scale capitalist agriculture,
and that the latifundia are frequently survivals of pre-capitalist relationships—slave-owning, feudal or
patriarchal. A break-up, a parcelling out of the latifundia, is
taking place both in the South and in the West. In the North,
the total farm acreage increased by 30.7 million acres, of which
only 2.3 million is accounted for by latifundia, while 22
million belongs to big, capitalist farms (175 to 999 acres). In
the South, the total acreage was reduced by 7.5 million. The
latifundia decreased by 31.8 million acres. On the small farms there was an increase of 13 million, and on the
medium farms, 5 million acres. In the West, the total acreage
increased by 17 million; among the latifundia there was a
decrease of 1.2 million; on the small farms, an increase of 2
million; medium, 5 million; large, 11 million acres.

The improved acreage increased in the latifundia of all
three sections: substantially in the North (+3.7 million acres =
+47.0%), very slightly in the South (+0.3 million = +5.5%), and
more in the West (+2.8 million = +29.6%). But in the North, the
maximum increase in the improved acreage-occurred on the
large farms (175 to 999 acres); in the South, on the small and medium ; in the West, on the
large and medium . Hence, it is the large farms that are increasing their share of the improved land in
the North, and the small and in part the medium farms, in the
South and the West. This picture fully corresponds to what we
already know about the different conditions in these sections. In the South, there is a growth ot small-scale
commercial farming at the expense of the disintegrating
slave-holding latifundia; the process is similar in the West,
except that the break-up of even larger latifundia, which had
their origin not in slave-holding but in extensive stock ranches and pre-empted tracts, is not as
pronounced. Moreover, American statisticians say the following
about the Pacific division:

“ The great development of small fruit and other farms on the
Pacific coast, due, in part at least, to irrigation projects
organized in recent years, is reflected in the increase in small
farms of less than 50 acres in the Pacific division” (Vol. V,
p. 264).

The North has neither slave-holding nor “primitive” latifundia,
there is no disintegration of them, no growth of the small farms
at the expense of the large.

The process for the United States as a whole appears as follows:

| Size group (acres) | Number of farms (000) | Ditto
(%) | Increase or decrease |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1900 | 1910 | 1900 | 1910 |
| Under 20 20 to 49 50 to 99 100 to 174 174 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 and over | 674 1,258 1,366 1,422 868 103 47 | 839 1,415 1,438 1,516 978 125 50 | 11.7 21.9 23.8 24.8 15.1 1.8 0.8 | 13.2 22.2 22.6 23.8 15.4 2.0 0.8 | +1.5 +0.3 -1.2 -1.0 +0.3 +0.2 |
| |
| Totals | 5,739 | 6,361 | 100.0 | 100.0 | |

Thus, the number of latifundia in proportion to the total number
of farms remains unchanged. The most characteristic change in
the relationship between the other groups in the reduction in the number of medium-size farms and the strengthening of
the farms at both ends. The medium-size group (100 to 174 acres)
and its smaller neighbor have lost ground. The smallest and the
small farms show the greatest gains, and are followed by the
large-scale capitalist farms (175 to 999 acres).

Let us take a look at the total acreage.

| Size group (acres) | All farmland (000) | Ditto (%) | Increase or decrease |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1900 | 1910 | 1900 | 1910 |
| Under 20 20 to 49 50 to 99 100 to 174 174 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 and over. | 7,181 41,536 98,592 192,680 232,955 67,864 197,784 | 8,794 45,378 103,121 204,481 265,289 83,653 167,082 | 0.9 5.0 11.8 23.0 27.8 8.1 23.6 | 1.0 5.2 11.7 23.4 30.2 9.5 19.0 | +0.1 +0.2 -0.1 +0.4 +2.4 +1.4 -4.6 |
| |
| Totals | 838,592 | 878,798 | 100.0 | 100.0 | |

We find above all a very substantial reduction in the share of
total acreage held by the latifundia. It should be borne in mind
that an absolute reduction is taking place only in the South and
the West, where the proportion of un improved land in the latifundia in 1910 was 91.5% and 77.1% respectively. There
was also an insignificant decrease in the share of the top small
group in the total acreage (—0.1% in the 50-to-99-acre size
group). The greatest increase was shown by the large-scale
capitalist groups, the 175-to-499-acre and the 500-to-999-acre
groups. There was a relatively small increase in the share of
the very small groups in the acreage. The medium group (100 to
174 acres) was practically stagnant (+0.4%).

Let us now take a look at the improved acreage.

| Size group (acres) | Improved land in farms (000) | Ditto (%) | Increase or decrease |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1900 | 1910 | 1900 | 1910 |
| Under 20 20 to 49 50 to 99 100 to 174 174 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 and over | 6,440 33,001 67,345 118,391 135,530 29,474 24,317 | 7,992 36,596 71,155 128,854 161,775 40,817 31,263 | 1.6 8.0 16.2 28.6 32.7 7.1 5.9 | 1.7 7.6 14.9 26.9 33.8 8.5 6.5 | +0.1 -0.4 -1.3 -1.7 +1.1 +1.4 +0.6 |
| |
| Totals | 414,498 | 478,452 | 100.0 | 100.0 | |

The size of the farming enterprise is indicated with some degree of approximation and allowing for certain exceptions
to which I have referred and shall refer again below—only
by the improved and not the total acreage. Once again we find
that while the share of the total acreage held by the latifundia
substantially decreased, their share of the improved acreage
increased . In general, all the capitalistic groups gained ground, and most of all the 500-to-999-acre group. The
largest reduction was in the medium-size group (—1.7%),
followed by all the small groups, with the exception of the
smallest, the group under 20 acres, which showed a negligible
increase (+0.1%).

Let us note in advance that the smallest-size group (under 20
acres) includes farms of less than 3 acres, which are not
included in American statistics unless they raise at least $250
worth of products a year. For that reason these tiny farms (of
less than 3 acres) have a greater volume of production and a
more highly developed capitalist character than the next group
up the scale. To illustrate this point here are the returns for
1900—unfortunately the corresponding returns for 1910 are
not available:

| | Average per farm: |
| --- | --- |
| Size groups (1900) (acres) | Improved land (acres) | Value of all products ($) | Outlays on hired labour ($) | Value of implements and machinery ($) | Value of livestock ($) |
| Under 3 .... 3 to 10 .... 10 to 20 .... 20 to 50 .... | 1.7 5.6 12.6 26.2 | 592 203 236 324 | 77 18 16 18 | 53 42 41 54 | 867 101 116 172 |

Even the 3-to-10-acre farms, to say nothing of farms with less
than 3 acres, turn out in some respects to be “larger” (outlays
on hired labour, value of implements and machinery) than the
10-to-20-acre farms. [1]

Consequently, there is good reason to attribute the increase in the share of the total improved land
held by farms under 20 acres to an increase in the improved land
of the pronounced capitalist-type farms of the smallest-size
group.

On the whole, the returns for 1900 and l910 on the distribution
of improved land in the U.S.A. between small and large farms
warrant this absolutely definite and indubitable conclusion:
the large farms are becoming stronger , the medium and the small farms , weaker . Hence,
insofar as the capitalist or non-capitalist character of agriculture can be deduced from the data relating to farms
grouped by acreage, the United States in the last decade shows,
as a general rule, a growth of the large-scale, capitalist farms
and the obliteration of small farms.

The statistics on the increase in the number of farms and the improved acreage in each group will confirm this conclusion:

| | Increase for 1900-10
(%) |
| --- | --- |
| Size groups (acres) | Number of farms | Improved acreage |
| Under 20 20 to 49 50 to 99 100 to 174 174 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 and over | +24.5 +12.5 + 5.3 + 6.6 +12.7 +22.2 + 6.3 | +24.1 +10.9 + 5.7 + 8.8 +19.4 +38.5 +28.6 |
| |
| Overall increase | +10.9 | +15.4 |

The largest percentage increase in the improved acreage took
place in the two topmost groups. The least increase occurred in
the medium-size group and the next smaller group (50 to 99
acres). In the two smallest groups the percentage increase in
the improved acreage was less than the percentage increase in
the number of farms.

---
Notes:
[1]

For
1900 we have returns by size groups for the number of high
income farms, i.e., farms with a product valued over
$2,500. Here are these figures: among farms of less than 3
acres, the proportion of high-income farms was 5.2%; 3 to 10
acres—0.6%; 10 to 20 acres—0.4%; 20 to 50 acres—0.3%; 50 to 100—0.6%; 100 to 175—1.4%; 175
to 260—5.2%; 260 to 500—12.7%; 500 to
1,000—24.3%; 1,000 and over—39.5%. We find the proportion of high-income farms in all the under-20-acre groups
to be greater than in the 20-to-50-acre group.
— Lenin