The motives for this northward migration are various. The offer of higher wages is the most important. The desire to get for their children greater educational advantages than are offered in the South is also impelling. The belief that race prejudice is less strong in the North is another inducement to leave the South, for "Jim Crow" cars and political disfranchisement have irritated many. Finally the dread of lynch law may be mentioned as a motive for migration, though its actual importance may be doubted. Not all the negroes who have moved to the North have remained there. Many do not allow for the higher cost of food and shelter in their new home, and these demands upon the higher wages leave a smaller margin than was expected. Others find the climate too severe, while still others are unable or unwilling to work regularly at the speed demanded. The overwhelming mass of the negro population in the South, and therefore in the nation, is still rural, though among them, as among the whites, the drift toward the cities is marked. The chief occupations are agriculture, general jobbing not requiring skilled labor, and domestic service, although there is a scattered representation of negroes in almost every trade, business, and profession. In 1865 the amount of property held by negroes was small. A few free negroes were upon the tax-books, and former masters sometimes made gifts of property to favorites among the liberated slaves, but the whole amount was trifling compared with the total number of negroes. In 1910, in the Southern States, title to 15,691,536 acres of land was held by negroes, and the equity was large. This amount represents an increase of over 2,330,000 acres since 1900 but is nevertheless only 4.4 per cent of the total farm land in the South. As tenants or managers, negroes cultivated in addition nearly 27,000,000 acres. In other words, 29.8 per cent of the population owned 4.4 per cent of the land and cultivated 12 per cent of it. The total value of the land owned was $273,000,000, an average of $1250 to the farm. ¹ ¹ It must be noted, however, that during the decade ending in 1910, the percentage of increase in negro farm owners was 17 as against 12 for the whites, and of increase in the value of their holdings was 156 per cent as against 116 per cent for whites, while the proportion of white tenants increased. The other property of the negro can only be estimated, as most States do not list the races separately. The census for 1910 reports 430,449 homes, rural and urban, owned by negroes, and of these 314,340 were free of encumbrance, compared with a total of 327,537 homes in 1900, of which 229,158 were free. Further discussion of the part of the negro in agriculture will be found in another chapter.