23] 



THE TENURE OF LAND BEFORE i860 



23 



the number and grouping of farms. A resume of these 

 figures shows that there were 41,084 slave-owners hold- 

 ing 462,198 slaves — an average of 1 1.2 slaves to each 

 owner. A grouping of these owners according to the 

 number of slaves held by each is here presented : x 



A distribution of the slave groups among the farm 

 groups upon the basis of making each farm, beginning 

 with the largest, represent a slave-owner, so long as the 

 latter last, gives the following result : 



Number of 

 farms 



3 to 10 acres 906 



10 to 20 acres 2,803 



20 to 50 acres 13,644 



50 to 100 acres 14,129 



100 to 500 acres 18,821 



500 to 1000 acres 2,692 



1000 acres and over 901 



1 Eighth Census (i860), Agriculture, p. 227. 



2 In many cases the owner of only one slave was not a farmer. Even 

 aside from this the number of owners of one slave is not large enough 

 to correspond to the number of farms in the 20 to 50 acre group. 



