39] 



TENDENCIES IN LANDOWNERSHIP 



39 



More significance however is to be attached to the 

 downward and lateral movements in the other columns, 

 not only because they affect far more people but also 

 because they pertain to the distribution of over ninety- 

 nine per cent of the lands owned by the whites. In the 

 columns from the fourth to the eighth inclusive, the in- 

 crease in the number of holdings varied from 223 per 

 cent to eleven per cent; or, considering these groups 

 as a whole, there was an increase of sixty-seven per cent 

 in the total number of white owners of land-tracts rang- 

 ing in size from twenty to five hundred acres. These 

 tracts represented in 1902 about fifty-two per cent of 

 the total acreage owned by whites, whereas in 1873 the 

 holdings ranging in size from twenty to five hundred 

 acres represented slightly less than forty per cent of the 

 total acreage. 



In passing to the last two columns it is found that, 

 whereas in 1873 they contained about twenty-one per 

 cent of the owners and sixty per cent of the acreage, in 

 1902 they had about eleven per cent of the owners and 

 forty-seven per cent of the land. A detailed statement 

 of these percentages by groups and by dates is here pre- 

 sented : 



♦Too small to estimate. 



