spirit" of your community from the appearance of its homes? Would
he be right?

THE HOME AND COMMUNITY STABILITY

Home ownership is one of the strongest influences that give
permanence and stability to the community. The census taken by the
United States government every ten years shows that home ownership
has been decreasing throughout the country as a whole. The
decrease has been greatest in cities, but it is true also of
farmhome ownership. In 1880 only 25% of the farms of the United
States were occupied by tenants (renters); in 1910, 37% were so
occupied. It is true that in the ten years from 1900 to 1910 there
was a slight increase in the proportion of farms owned by their
occupants in the New England and Middle Atlantic states, and in a
large part of the West; but the increase in these parts was more
than overbalanced by the decrease in the South Atlantic and Gulf
states and in the Mississippi Valley. The smallest proportion of
farm tenancy is found in New England (8%), and the largest in the
southern states (45.9% in the South Atlantic states, and more than
50% in the South central states). A large part of the farming in
the South is done by negroes, most of whom are either laborers on
the farms of the white population or tenants on small farms which
they usually work on shares. And yet the number of negro farm
owners in the South has been rapidly increasing in the last few
years, though not so rapidly as the number of tenants. In 1910
negro farm owners cultivated nearly 16,000,000 acres of land in
the South, all of which they have acquired since the Civil War.

EFFECTS OF DECLINE OF HOME OWNERSHIP