THE NEGRO AS A FARMER Prof. Geo. W. Carver, M. Ag.
The above subject is by no means an easy one to discuss, as reliable data are fragmentary and widely scattered; yet I am sure that I have been able to collect some interesting and valuable facts and figures bearing upon this important question. There is no doubt that the Negro as a tenant farmer is a failure; this we are forced to admit, but we do so with a justly proud feeling that it is not an inherent race characteristic, but the result of conditions over which we had little or no control. Failure is inevitably and indelibly stamped in the foreheads of any class of average tenant farmers, regardless of race or color. In American agriculture the Negro has always held, and is yet holding, an important place; in fact, far more, as a rule, than has been accredited to him. Lest our judgment be too harsh in this particular, I have thought it wise to briefly scan the beginning and development of agriculture in the United States. In 1492 the first settlers found the Indians carrying on agriculture in a crude and limited way, by the women; their farm machinery consisting of their fingers, a pointed stick for planting, and the bones of animals and the shell of the clam for a hoe; with nothing more than a squatter's right as a voucher for the ownership of their farms. Prof. McMaster's History of the People of the United States, George K. Holmes, assistant statistician of the United States Department of Agriculture, in his "Progress of Agriculture in the United States," and other high authorities, tell us that the white man came, poor in the materials of wealth, a stranger in a strange land with a strange climate. His tools were but little, if any, improvement on those of the Indians, and agriculture as we know it to-day was an idealistic dream. The plow was an exceedingly crude thing and but little used, the hoe forming the principal implement of industry. After a piece of land had been continuously "cropped" until worn out, it was abandoned, or the cows turned upon it for a while. It is further said that the poor whites, who had formerly been indentured servants, were the most lazy, the most idle, the most shiftless and the most worthless of men. Their huts were The grain was threshed by driving horses over it in the open field. When they ground it they used a rude pestle and mortar, or placed it in the hollow of one stone and beat it with another. Beef or pork, generally salted, salt fish, dried apples, bread made of rye or Indian meal, milk, and a very limited variety of vegetables, constituted the food throughout the year. When night came on his light was derived from a few candles of home manufacture. The farmer and his family wore homespun. If linen was wanted, the flax was sown and weeded, pulled and retted, then broken and swingled, for all of which processes nearly a year was required before the flax was ready for the spinners, bleaching on the grass, and making and wearing. If woolens were wanted, sheep were sheared and the wool was dyed and spun and woven at home. It was almost invariably true of all the settlers that the use and value of manures was little regarded. The barn was sometimes removed to get it out of the way of heaps of manure, because the owner would not go to the expense of removing the accumulations and putting them upon his fields. Such were the dreary conditions of the farmer's life in colonial days, living all the time very closely upon the margin of subsistence. Those conditions continued for some time after the Republic had been established, and were not measurably ameliorated until the present century had well advanced, until an improved intelligence—the dissemination of information, and the work of the inventor, had begun to take effect. From the above we see how strikingly similar were the life, methods of agriculture, and the results obtained from the sturdy New Englander, who represented the best blood, bone and sinew of the old world, with its almost prehistoric civilization, to that of the American Negro, whose intellectual star is just beginning to rise above the horizon. Over two centuries and a half ago the Negro found his way as a slave to America, in a little Dutch trading vessel, cheap labor being the chief motive which prompted such a gigantic scheme. The experiment flourished and grew, and at about the close of the eighteenth century six million slaves had been brought to this country. The major part of all the cotton, corn, cane, potatoes, tobacco, and other agricultural products, were planted, cultivated, harvested and prepared for, and, not infrequently, marketed Whatever of truth there is in Mr. Van de Graff's grave apprehensions for the Negro, he with us must admit that the ills of the black tenant farmer are simply the ills of the Southern farmer in a more or less aggravated form. It is also true that the curse of such a system falls the heaviest on the smallest and most ignorant tenant farmer, who is the least capable of self-defense. For years we have been content to let the preachers preach, the lawyers argue, the philosophers predict, the teachers and the doctors practice with scarcely a question as to our priority of right. We have, in the face of the many oppositions which come to every race similarly situated, labored with endurance, patience and forbearance, until the birth of the twentieth century dawns upon us, steadily marching on, with something over $263,000,000 worth of unencumbered property to our credit. Now as to the number owning farms and following agricultural pursuits as a livelihood, we are pleased to submit some figures from the last census report, from Crogman, in his "Progress of a Race," and from other authorities. Beginning In the state of Delaware the farms constitute 85 per cent of the total land surface of the state, which is divided up into 9,687 farms, of which 8,869, or 91.6 per cent, are operated by whites, and 818, or 8.4 per cent, by Negroes. Of the latter class 297 are operated by owners, and 35 by part owners. The value of their farms, including implements, machinery and live stock, together with the value of implements, machinery and live stock on the farms which other Negroes operate as tenants, is $495,187. In Arizona we find that three Negro farmers operate their farms as salaried managers. Twelve own farms containing 1,511 acres, with farm property valued at $60,422; one leases a 39-acre farm for cash, and has implements and live stock worth $130. The total investment by Negroes in agriculture, exclusive of farms owned by them and leased to others, is, therefore, $60,552, which is a rather encouraging showing for Arizona. Messrs. Walker and Fitch, graduates of Hampton Institute, in 1896, made a careful canvass of one congressional district in Virginia, and found as follows: Out of a total acreage of 1,944,359 acres, one fifteenth, or 125,597 acres, is owned by the Colored people, roughly estimated at $1,000,000. These figures mean farm owning chiefly, as $79,611 represent the total city property. They also report that in Gloucester county, 25 years from the above date, the Colored people owned less than 100 acres of land. To-day they own 13,000 acres of land free from any encumbrance. Again, the statistician reports, in 1890, 12,690,152 homes and farms in the United States, and of this number the Negroes own 234,747 free from all encumbrance, and 29,541 mortgaged; giving the percentage of mortgaged property owned by Negroes as 10.71, while the whole percentage of mortgaged property for the whole country is 38.97. It is further stated that of all the property held by Negroes, 88.58 per cent is owned without encumbrance. Since so much has been accomplished in the Negro's pioneer days of freedom, may we not predict with a considerable degree of assurance that the next decade and a half will far exceed our most sanguine hope? The virgin fertility of our soils, and the vast amount of cheap and unskilled labor, have been a curse rather than a blessing to agriculture. This exhaustive system of cultivation, the destruction of forests, the rapid and almost constant decomposition of organic matter, together with the great multiplicity of insect and fungus diseases that appear every year, make the Southern agricultural problem one requiring more brains than that of the North, East or West. The advance of civilization has brought, and is constantly bringing, about a more healthy form of competition. The markets are becoming more fastidious, and he who puts such a product upon the market as it demands, controls that market, regardless of color. It is simply a survival of the fittest. We are also aware that the demands upon agriculture were never so exacting as they are now. All other trades and professions are holding out their inducements to the young men and women who are ready and willing to grapple with life's responsibilities. One says, "Come and I will make you a Gould." Another, a Rockefeller; still another, an Astor—with all the luxuries their names suggest. Too many of our own farmers illy prepare their land, cultivate, harvest and market the scanty and inferior crop, selling the same for less than it cost to produce it. I need not tell you that the above conditions imperatively suggest the proverbial mule, implements more or less primitive, with frequently a The many excellent schools, colleges, nature study leaflets, farmers' bulletins and reading courses, conferences, convocations, congresses, fairs, and the like, are all powerful educational factors designed to lead the race into higher agricultural activities. The agricultural schools, and higher institutions of that character, are wisely laying much stress upon stock raising, dairying, horticulture, landscape gardening, poultry raising, and every manipulation incident to the successful operation of this great industry. These subjects have been taught almost wholly to young men, but recent experience has taught, not only in this, but in other countries, that many of these studies seem especially suited to women; and many are taking the advantages offered by schools in the matter of learning the technique of poultry raising, dairying, horticulture, landscape gardening, and the related sciences, along with their academy or college work, and as a reward are finding pleasant, profitable and healthful employment. Nature study, with the first principles of agriculture, is compulsory in many of the primary schools, and ere another decade is indelibly placed upon the historical records of the greatest events of the greatest century, it will find us wonderfully in advance in this particular. Every year we see a perceptible increase in the funds for public education, and magnificent schools and colleges, with better paid professors, springing up here and there, stand out as beacon lights to this new and wonderful epoch. The wisdom of spending these ever-increasing millions upon the youth of our land becomes from year to year a matter of less concern as we seek to give our boys and girls a broader education than that of a pure scientist. It is very encouraging to note the course taken by our young men and women who have gone out from SECOND PAPER. THE NEGRO AS A FARMER. Prof. H. A. Hunt
In a chapter on this subject it may not be out of place to give some little attention to the early history of the Negro as a farmer in America. Without stopping to discuss the motives of the sea captain who brought over the first load of Negroes to America, or why the Northern colonists discontinued, at a comparatively early date, the use of slave labor, let us note a few things about the Negro in the South. The fact that they could easily endure the summer sun of the cotton belt; that they learned quickly the simple methods of farming used in the cultivation of cotton, rice, sugar-cane, and tobacco; that they required but little in the way of food, clothing, housing and medical attention, and the further fact that they possessed a peculiarly happy and light-hearted disposition, all tended to make them especially valuable to the Southern planters. It seems that slave labor was looked upon, at a comparatively early date, as being not only desirable, but absolutely necessary to the growth and development of the Southern colonies. For several years after the settlement of Georgia no slaves were allowed to be used in that colony, but, finding that the colony seemed to be doomed to failure, the "trustees" permitted the introduction of slaves and the colony began immediately to prosper. The following lines attributed to George Whitefield—the famous minister—in referring to his plantations in Georgia and South Carolina, give a fair idea of the feelings of the Southern colonists on the subject of slave labor at that time. He speaks thus about his Georgia plantation: "Upward of five thousand pounds have been expended in the undertaking, and yet very little proficiency made in the cultivation of my tract of land, and that entirely owing to the necessity I lay under of With the invention of the cotton gin slave labor became still more valuable, the South more prosperous, and the planters verily believed that cotton was king and South Carolina the hub of the universe. But, while it is true that the Negro became an indispensable factor in the material prosperity of the South by his work on the plantations, yet he did not at that time occupy a position that could be dignified with the name of farmer. During the days of slavery the Negro occupied a position more closely akin to that of a farm animal than that of a farmer. Of course there were exceptions but we are speaking now of the masses. The Negro having been looked upon by his master and schooled to look upon himself and his fellow bondmen as possessing none of the intelligence and virtues essential to success in life, there is little wonder that a comparatively small number of freedmen took advantage of the opportunities offered immediately after the close of the Civil War to become land owners. Indeed, when we take into account the fact that there was a sort of caste feeling among the slaves, with the "field hands" as the "mud sill," and all glad of any opportunity offered to rise above the despised position, the great wonder is that so many were willing to continue an occupation considered so degrading. The fact is, that it was to a very great extent simply a matter of accepting cheerfully the inevitable that held so many of the freedmen to the farms and to farm life. Among the positive forces that operated in taking the Negro from the farm there was, perhaps, none stronger than the desire to have his children educated—the opportunity for which being very poor in the country districts—many of the very best and most thrifty among them left the farms for the towns and cities. But whether on the farm or in the city, only a few years of freedom and its attendant responsibilities were necessary to enable the more The condition just described represents the state of affairs during the first few years after the war, as indeed it does present conditions, except that the number of those who may be called farmers is constantly increasing and the number of mere farm hands is growing proportionately smaller. We should keep constantly in mind the distinction between the man who tills his own land and the one who works the land of another, the former is the farmer, the latter the farm hand. The distinction just noted would seem to be entirely justifiable as ownership of the land is the first requisite for the proper interest in, and love for the work being done, to entitle a man to the name of farmer. In order to properly appreciate the opportunities and advantages of farm life to himself and his children, there must be that love for the farm itself, its rocks, its woods, its hills, its shady rills and its meadows that can come in no other way than through the proud sense of ownership. There must be the feeling of kinship for the very soil itself; the birds, the bees, the flowers must all be held dear to the heart of him who would know nature's choicest secrets and reap rich harvests from her beautiful storehouse. In no field are the prospects brighter for the negro than in that of agriculture. There are thousands of acres of land in the South and Southwest that may be purchased upon terms so favorable that the land being purchased, may, by proper management, be made to yield sufficient income to meet the payments. In the combination of a mild climate, cheap land, with easy payments, ready markets and previous training of the Negro, God seems to be offering special inducements for him to come out from the condition of a landless tenant—that may grow into a serfdom worse than slavery—to that of worthy, independent and self-respecting land owners. There is no field in which he meets so little of the unreasoning and unreasonable prejudice as in farming. The products of the farm are the necessaries of life and people do not stop to question too closely as to whence they come or by whom produced. Owing to the growth of manufacturing in the South, especially of cotton goods and the consequent removal of large numbers of the poor whites into the cities and towns, just now would seem to be the high tide of the Negroes' opportunity to become an independent class of citizens; and we should be careful to seize it at its flood, or all the rest of our life's voyage may be bound in shallows and miseries more distressing than those already passed. The opportunity for buying land, becoming independent and even wealthy, are, indeed, grand, but the fact must ever be kept in mind that the present favorable conditions will not obtain indefinitely. Let the tide of European immigration once turn southward and competition immediately becomes sharper, and the further progress of the Negro decidedly more difficult. If the Negro would put himself in position to successfully withstand this competition that will inevitably come, let him begin now by purchasing his stronghold—the farm—and fortify himself, or he may awake, when it is too late, to find himself without a home or the means with which to secure it. Let us note just here one of the most solemn obligations resting upon those who stand as leaders of the Negroes, viz.: The duty of impressing upon the masses the absolute necessity for purchasing land and the great need, yes, the absolute necessity of doing so now. It is not the purpose of the writer to create the impression that the leaders of our people are neglecting their duty, or that the masses are letting their opportunities for material betterment pass unimproved, but rather to arouse both leaders and followers to the necessity for greater activity in their work. Indeed when all things, favorable and unfavorable, are taken into account, there is much to be thankful for and hopeful over in the present condition of the Negro farmers. In almost every community in the South there are to be found Negro farmers who are not only making a decent living, but buying land and improving it, building comfortable dwellings, improving the grades of their farm animals, giving liberal support to their schools and churches It is encouraging to note the increased interest on the part of many young men on the subject of farming, as evidenced by the increasing popularity of the agricultural and mechanical colleges, and the lively interest taken by them in the farmers' conferences held in various parts of the South. The number of Negro farmers who read agricultural journals and make intelligent use of the bulletins issued by the agricultural departments of the various states and the United States, is constantly increasing. Lest there be some doubt as to the truthfulness of the favorable conditions just mentioned, let the figures speak. Since last year the Negroes of the single state of Georgia have purchased 66,000 acres of land and added $380,000 to the value of farm lands. (Prof. W. E. B. DuBois in The Independent, Nov. 21, 1901.) Indeed it seems that if in one particular line of work more than any other the Negro has won for himself a place in the history of this country's progress that work has been upon the farm. If one section of the country has profited more than another by his toil, that section is the South, whose forests he has felled, whose roads he has built, whose soil he has tilled, whose wealth he has created, and whose prosperity he has made possible. Then let us not be discouraged, but turn our faces to the sunlight of heaven and put forth our very best endeavors, confidently expecting to reap the full rewards for our labors and attain the full measure of manhood as a race in this "the land of the free and the home of the brave." |