26 BULLETIN 1404, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
wealthiest farmers the children of all the farmers were limited to the 
educational facilities provided in the public-school system of the 
county, and superior advantages consisted in attaining a higher 
average grade in the public schools or in attaining a higher grade at a 
relatively earlier age. 
Inheritance and other adventitious methods of wealth acquisition 
had exercised but small influence on the process of accumulation, 
and the results of this study emphasize conclusions indicated in other 
similar studies made by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics that 
the human factor is more influential than external circumstances in 
accounting for progress in accumulation. This is particularly true 
in the instances of unusual success. In every community certain 
individuals, operating in the same environment as their neighbors, 
succeed in thrusting themselves far in advance of the general progress 
in wealth accumulation achieved by their associates. 
Even within the limitations of the economic resources of these 
negro families there is room for much progress in the qualitative 
improvement of the standard of living, and particularly in the 
enrichment of the intellectual life, which in these days of inexpensive 
publications is less limited by inadequate economic resources than 
by undeveloped or underdeveloped taste. A few families had 
achieved a comparatively high standard of living judged from this 
point of view. 
