256 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion to do the heavy farm work ; but closer examination will generally 

 reveal the fact that an unduly large proportion of these negroes reside 

 in the towns, while the white man still works the one-hundred-acre 

 farm of his fathers. For instance, 32.3 per cent, of the population of 

 the county of Spartanburg, S. C, is put down as negro; but the 

 county seat alone, with a population of 11,395, contains 20 per cent, of 

 the negroes of the entire county, and only 16 per cent, of the whites, 

 and one may ride for hours through many of the townships and see 

 scarcely a black face. And all this is true despite the fact, let it be 

 noted, that during the last twenty years tens of thousands of whites 

 and not one black have been drawn into the towns to man the twenty- 

 eight cotton mills of the county, having an aggregate capital of ten 

 millions of dollars. What negroes there are have largely come from 

 the two counties on the south, which as early as 1850 had a majority 

 of negro population. 



It will be observed that only four counties of large negro population 

 are also largely productive, of which one lies in the Flint river bottom 

 in Georgia, being one of about two dozen spots of exceptional richness 

 strewn midway across the state from the Savannah to the Chattahoo- 

 chee; and three are in the Tensas bottom bordering the Mississippi in 

 Louisiana; and the productiveness of these, it will be noticed, is 

 exceeded by that of counties of large white population similarly situ- 

 ated, as, e. g., Lafourche and Tangipahoa, La. 



In conclusion, we may say that a careful study of the tables re- 

 veals the facts, first, that the white tenant working for himself usually 

 makes more than the negro tenant working for himself; and second, 

 that in localities in which the large majority of the labor hired by 

 white farmers is black, the production by white owners is generally 

 less than that of white tenants doing their own work and tends to ap- 

 proximate the production by black farmers. That is to say, white 

 o-\vnership farming barely suffices to raise black labor to the level of 

 the efficiency of white tenants. 



I am concerned with the negro only in his bearing upon the present 

 condition of southern agriculture, and do not intend the dark pictures I 

 have drawn of his shortcomings as 'views' upon the race question. 

 The best element of our colored people merit sincere praise for their 

 progress; but it can not be denied that the great mass of the negro 

 population, in its present condition, is a fearful incubus upon the 

 industry of the south. To contend that the negro fills such a large 

 part of our economy is not to prove his efficiency or his necessity; for 

 ours is the only great country of the world that is not without his aid. 

 The immediate need of the industry of the south regarding him, what- 

 ever his final destiny, is to strengthen his character and raise his in- 

 telligence to a point adequate to the proper performance of his eco- 

 nomic functions. 



