Excerpts from the report: It is the contention of the authors that the pattern of land tenure associated with resources used by farm operators is primarily a function of (1) the firm growth environment present in the agricultural industry and (2) the view that farm operators and/or land investors hold with regard to the potential short- and longrun capital accumulation and investments through the utilization of borrowed and owned funds. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that firm growth analyses provides a relevant framework for examining this hypothesis. Three basic suppositions with regard to this hypothesis are (a) capital is more limited to the farm operator for investment in ownership than for annual operating purposes, (b) cash capital accumulation is greater in the shortrun for capital used for rented land resources than for ownership investment purposes, and (c) total capital accumulation is greater in the longrun for land ownership investment purposes than for operating capital used for rented land resources.