White farmer

“ The absence of good pastures and of meadows is noticeable. This is also too true of white farmers. Yet the grasses grow luxuriantly and nothing but custom or something else accounts for their absence; the something else is cotton. ”

“ I have already mentioned that farm laborers were getting fewer, and those left are naturally the less reliable. Many white farmers are having considerable difficulty in carrying on their places. The result is that many are only partially cultivating the farms, and many of the younger men are abandoning agriculture. What the final result will be is hard to tell.
In summarizing it may be said that agriculture is being somewhat neglected and that the opportunity to earn money in the oyster industry acts as a constant deterrent to agricultural progress, if it is not directly injurious. ”

“ If I did not believe the negro was capable of sufficient development to make him a responsible small farmer, I should not want to remain in the business that I am any longer, because I believe that the development of my business is necessarily based upon the development of the negro and the cultivation of my lands. ”

“ That this practice was a fact and had been long-standing the words of a prominent Southern man will show. "There is money in farming," says he, "lots of it, but the Negro farmer has been systematically robbed by the white man since the close of the Civil War. ”

“ In this county are many small white farmers who work in the fields with the men, and the white housewife not infrequently cooks the food for the Negroes—quite a contrast to typical southern practice.
The movement from the farm is not an unmixed evil in that it is compelling the introduction of improved machinery, such as mowing machines, binders. On many a farm only scythes and cradles are known.
Another element in the problem is the fact that many negroes have been getting little places of their own and therefore do less work for others. ”

“ The cotton crop of this country is being raised to such an extent by the small white farmers that the large planter can no longer afford to hire and compete with that class of labor who only expend their own energy; consequently the tendency is to make farmers of the negroes. ”

“ This may be true of the whites, but it is a lame explanation for the blacks. Negro farmers who own more land than they can cultivate appear to be better known at Washington than they are locally. The trouble with the entire argument is that it assumes that the Negro is an independent cultivator of cotton. This is not quite the case. In all parts of the South the Negro, tenant or owner, usually receives advances from white factors, and these spend a good part of their time riding about to see that the land is cultivated in order to insure repayment of their loans. ”

“ The Negro is not the sole cotton maker; fully one third of the cotton in the South is never touched by a black hand, being raised by small white farmers both in the lowlands and in the hill regions, who produce one, two, or more bales a year and depend upon that crop to pay their store bills. Something like one sixth of the crop is raised by independent negro land owners or renters working for themselves; this leaves nearly or quite one half the crop to negro labor under the superintendence of white owners or managers. ”

“ The system existed among the white planters for many years before the war.
A certain amount of food and clothing was advanced to the Negro family until the crop could be harvested, when the money value of the goods received was returned with interest. Perhaps nothing which concerns the Negro has been the subject of more hostile criticism than this crop-lien system. That it is easily abused when the man on one side is a shrewd and cunning sharpster and the borrower an illiterate and trusting Negro is beyond doubt. ”

“ Land monopoly—in the hands of individuals, corporations or syndicates—is at bottom the prime cause of the inequalities which obtain; which desolate fertile acres turned over to vast ranches and into bonanza farms of a thousand acres, where not one family finds a habitation, where muscle and brain are supplanted by machinery, and the small farmer is swallowed up and turned into a tenant or slave. ”

“ The suggestion of Africa is not vague. The Virginia Negro views these gatherings with as much astonishment as does any white. Many of the blacks speak a strange dialect hard to understand. "Shum," for instance, being the equivalent for "see them."
The land is sandy and should have skillful handling to get the best results. Yet the farming is very unscientific. The first plowing is shallow and subsequent cultivation is done almost entirely with hoes. When a Hampton graduate began some new methods last year the people came for miles to see his big plow. ”

“ For this land a rental of from $6 to $8 per acre is paid, while plantations will rent for a term of years at an acre. A good deal of new land is brought in cultivation by offering it rent free to a Negro for three years, the tenant agreeing to clear off the timber and bring the soil under cultivation. On some plantations no interest is charged on goods advanced by the Negro usually pays 25 per cent. for all money he borrows. The white planter has to pay at least 8 per cent and agree to sell his cotton through the factor of whom the money is obtained and pay him a commission of 2.5 per cent. ”

“ We prefer, however, the tenant system. We wish to make small farmers our laborers, and bring them up as nearly as possible to the standard of the small white farmers. But this can only be done gradually, because the larger portion of the negroes are without any personal property. We could not afford to sell the mules, implements, &c., where a laborer has nothing. Therefore the first year we contract to work with him on the half-share system, and require him to plant a portion of the land he cultivates in corn, hay, potatoes, &c. ”

“ The men till their lots and occasionally work by the day for some of the surrounding white farmers. In season, the women and children and some of the men as well go elsewhere to pick berries. In the late summer all have employment at home for about two months furnished by a white cannery, near. ”

“ The sun rises as usual, and the heavens are clear. “Now where is old Noah's flood?” is heard from a thousand impious lips. The farmer is caring for his herds and lands, and the mechanic is pursuing his work of building. On this very day, some are being joined in marriage. With many it is a day of unusual feasting and sports. And while all are looking to long years of future prosperity and happiness, suddenly the heavens gather blackness. Fear fills every heart. ”

“ Hoes, heavy and clumsy, were the common tools. Within a year I have seen grass being mowed with hoes preparatory to putting the ground in cultivation. Even today the Negro has to be trained to use the light, sharp hoe of the North. Corn, cotton and, in a few districts, rice or tobacco were the staple crops, although each plantation raised its own fruit and vegetables, and about the cabins in the quarters were little plots for gardens. The land was cultivated for a time, then abandoned for new, while in most places little attention was paid to rotation of crops or to fertilizers. ”

“ About 37 per cent. of the farms are operated by colored farmers, and over 86 per cent. of these are rented. The negro farmer limits himself largely to the raising of cotton—being encouraged in this by the prevailing system of crop mortgaging, and by his disinclination to adopt new methods. As a result three-fourths of the total number of farms cultivated by negroes are rented and devoted to the raising of cotton.
In the swampy regions in the southern part of the State there is much waste land, and also in the mountains of the northern part. ”

“ The adaptability of cotton to the Negro is almost providential. It has a long tap root and is able to stand neglect and yet produce a reasonable crop. The grains, corn and cane, with their surface roots, will not thrive under careless handling.
The average farmer knows, or at least utilizes few of the little economies which make agriculture so profitable elsewhere. The Negro is thus under a heavy handicap and does not get the most that he might from present opportunities. ”

“ Agriculture is, or has been, the basic industry of nearly every race or nation that has succeeded. The Negro got a knowledge of this during slavery. Hence, in a large measure, he is in possession of this industry in the South to-day. The Negro can buy land in the South, as a rule, wherever the white man can buy it, and at very low prices. Now, since the bulk of our people already have a foundation in agriculture, they are at their best when living in the country, engaged in agricultural pursuits. ”

“ He may be seen at work on his own little farm, taking care of his stock, picking his cotton, fixing up or adding to his house, his fifteen-year-old girl plowing with one mule. A Negro’s farm is generally more slovenly than a white man’s, but the crops are raised. ”

“ After the first shock of change was over, these negroes developed into orderly, industrious, thriving Christian communities. Each farm was thoroughly cultivated, and there was produced every year good crops of potatoes, sweet and Irish, peas, corn, melons and one or two bales of cotton, which, mortgaged to the local storekeeper, generally a white man, furnished them with groceries. All raised and owned horses, mules, hogs, cattle, turkeys, domestic fowls and ducks. ”

“ Recent years have witnessed an enormous development of truck farming, but in this the Negro has borne little part. This intensive farming requires a knowledge of soil and of plant life, coupled with much ability in marketing wares, which the average Negro does not possess. Nor has he taken any great part in the fruit industry, which is steadily growing. ”

“ Since that time, they have greatly increased their quantity of cleared land; this season they had about three hundred acres of wheat—their crops are more abundant, furnishing more than a supply for their people. The fencing and arrangement of their fields are farmer-like and judicious. The number of their barns is increased to about twenty—their teams of horses and oxen, are numerous and efficient—they are pretty well supplied with wagons, harness, ploughs, and other farming utensils, and these articles are kept in tolerable repair. ”

“ Those, at any rate, who thought that we were entitled to some breathing space, were willing to concede certain little "reserves" in the centre of groups of white men's farms, into which black men and women could be herded like so many heads of cattle, rearing their offspring as best they could and preparing them for a life of serfdom on the surrounding farm properties. ”

“ It is worthy of notice that in the schools maintained by the whites there is relatively little trouble on this account. Possibly the changed life and food are in no small measure responsible for the difference.
Under diversified farming there would be steady employment most of the year, with a corresponding increase of production. As it is there are two busy seasons. In the Spring, planting and cultivating cotton, say from March to July, and in the Fall, cotton picking, September to December. The balance of the time the average farmer does little work. ”

“ Here, as in Maryland, the practice of the best farmers who cultivate grain, of planting the land every alternate year in corn, and sowing it in wheat or rye in the autumn of the same year in which the corn is planted, and whilst the corn is yet standing in the field, so as to get a crop from the same ground every year, without allowing it time to rest or recover, exhausts the finest soil in a few years, and in one or two generations reduces the proprietors to poverty. Some, who are supposed to be very superior farmers, only plant the land in corn once in three years ”

“ There is something in the atmosphere of the farm that develops and strengthens the negro’s natural common sense. As a rule, the negro farmer has a rare gift of getting at the sense of things and of stating in picturesque language what he has learned. The explanation of it is, it seems to me, that the negro farmer studies nature. In his own way he studies the soil, the development of plants and animals, the streams, the birds and the changes of the seasons. ”

“ Selections from classical authors, ancient or modern, are recited by the Sixth-form boys, who are dressed for the occasion in black swallow-tail coats, white ties, black knee-breeches and buckles, silk stockings, and pumps. Then follows the provost’s luncheon, given in the college hall to the distinguished visitors, while similar entertainments on a smaller scale are going on in the various tutors’ and dames’ houses. At 3 o’clock there is full choral service in chapel. ”

“ Over one-seventh of the farms are operated by negroes, but only 22.4 per cent. of the negro farmers own their farms.
By far the largest and most valuable crop is corn, the acreage of which increased very considerably in the decade 1890-1900. ”

“ In the old days forays and raids tended more or less to keep the stock down. Since the White Man's Peace the herds are increasing. In the country between the Mau Escarpment and the Narossara Mountains we found the feed eaten down to the earth two months before the next rainy season. In the meantime the few settlers are hard put to it to buy cattle at any price wherewith to stock their new farms. ”