(a) Are they properly placed with reference to the highway?
(b) Are they conveniently placed in relation to one another?
(c) Are they suitably protected from the prevailing winds? How?
(d) What makes them attractive or unattractive?
(e) Are the stables properly situated to protect the health of the family? How?
Must a home be large and costly to be attractive?
What impression would a stranger get in regard to the "community 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.