Farmers and farm managers are the largest single group of owners in the sixteen southern states; they own 36 percent of all private noncorporate holdings and almost 43 percent of land in farms, according to a 1978 ESCS survey of privately owned farm and ranch land, other rural land, and urban land. Sole proprietorships and husbands and wives own 72 percent of all farmland; the largest 1 percent of all ownership units own half of all privately held land; and about 75 percent of the land is owned by people over 45 years old. The report also characterizes landownership by race, sex, method and date of acquisition, residence, and education.