Authorities agree that the concentration of land was much greater in 1910 than a century before. According to most authentic estimates, the number of large estates (each containing 25,000 acres or more) decreased from 25,000 in 1810, when all the land was held by one-fifth of the people,[1] to 11,000 in 1910, when about 98% of the families were landless. In only three of the thirty Mexican states and districts did the percentage of landless families fall below 95% while in five it was 99%.[2] Some of the estates contained several million acres.
Only a small part of the tillable land of these great estates was cultivated, serving the double purpose of keeping up the price of agricultural products and of reducing the number of laborers needed. The methods of cultivation were antiquated and unscientific so that the fertility of the soil during the century 1810 to 1910 was reduced by at least one-third.[3] The price of food was also increased by railway rates and by import duties of from 100 to 250% on corn, wheat, and flour.[4] The condition of the peons was thus worse than at any previous period. Though not uniform, the wages through a large section of the most productive part of Mexico were from 5 to 25 centavos per day, with a standard ration of one quart of corn and one quart of pulque.[5] Wages were usually paid in some sort of script to be traded out at the hacienda store. The most thorough study made of the living conditions of the Mexican working class, by A. J. Pani, estimates that the usual diet of the working man could produce little more than one-half the number of
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