The demand for labor in urban centers has of late made serious in roads in the available supply of unmarried farm hands and has stimu lated, to some extent, the building of houses for married hired men. Numerous land settlement schemes have advocated the building of a house with an acre or two of land for the rural hired man. This may be an admirable scheme to increase population in new regions where the labor supply is scarce. In the older and more settled regions such a policy would probably be very unfortunate. The general custom in .the northern half of the United States is that the hired man shall not marry until he has started farming and this article presupposes that future tenants will be selected from the present hired men. There are at least two causes for this. First, the lack of housing facilities on the farm? and second, an effective incen tive for accumulation of capital on the part of some hired men. These circumstances are a distinct and positive check on rural popu lation. The first proposition is relatively simple. It has been the custom in the northern part of United States for the unmarried laborers to lodge and board with their employers. The operating owner is thus confronted with an economic problem. If he brings the laborer into his own home his household expenses will be somewhat greater, and the duties of his wife will be increased. If he does not make the hired man a part of his family then he must build a second house and secure the services of a married man. Assuming that he can get either kind of help he desires, the operator must then weigh the ex pense of repairs and insurance, depreciation and interest on the house to be built and a slightly higher nominal wage against the increased household expenses and the inconvenience due to the presence of the hired man. In general, the farm produces a considerable portion of the daily food consumed, and the presence of one more mouth adds but little expense. Further, the operator is at very little extra expense to 163