128 RESOURCES OF SOUTHERN ALABAMA. 



tenure class percentages in any column represents the per- 

 centage of managers.) The percentages for white and col- 

 ored add up to 100 in each case, "colored" here including a 

 small fraction of Indians and Mongolians. 



Without going into tiresome details, it will be readily 

 seen that there is practically everywhere a larger propor- 

 tion of owners among the white farmers than among the 

 negroes, and if tenancy is taken as an indication of ineffi- 

 ciency, the negroes are least efficient where they are most 

 numerous, as already indicated by the statistics of illiteracy 

 and farm building values. (But tenancy may also be cor- 

 related with high land values, for tenants are very numer- 

 ous in some of the fertile north central states.) The propor- 

 tion of owners is high among both races in the southwestern 

 pine hills, presumably because the cheapness of the cut- 

 over land makes it easy to own a farm there. The farmer 

 who first clears a given piece of land usually owns it, and 

 many of the farms in this region are still in the possession 

 of those who first carved them out of the wilderness. Share 

 tenants are (or were) more numerous than cash tenants in 

 the eastern division of the red hills, but the reason for that 

 is not at present apparent. 



The farm tenure table for 1910 (No. 36) is arranged 

 differently from that for 1900, on account of more complete 

 data being available than in previous censues. The upper 

 half is for owners and part owners and the lower for ten- 

 ants, managers being omitted as before. In the last three 

 columns native and foreign whites are separated. 



Tenant farms are everywhere smaller than those oper- 

 ated by their owners, but have a larger proportion of the 

 land improved, for a tenant is not likely to pay rent on 

 much wild land. A tenant's buildings are usually decidedly 

 inferior to an owner's in the same region, but in Mobile 

 County we find an exception, the tenant farms having a 

 little more land in cultivation and being much more valu- 

 able than the owner's farms. The reason for this is not 

 very plain, but it may be that the rented farms are mostly 

 truck farms near the city, which are too valuable for the 

 average individual to own outright. 



Apparently the same rule holds with tenants as with 

 negroes (and indeed the two classes are largely identical), 

 namely, where they are most numerous they are least ef- 

 ficient. The large proportion of foreign farm owners in 



