SOCIAL AND KCONOMlC PK OGRESS OF THE NEGRO 1-ARMKRS 93 



fact, while in 1900 the women labourers of all races were 15 % of the women 

 receiving wages in the United States, the percentage in the case of the 

 negro women was 37.9. 



The low wages affect the general system of farming in the parts where 

 negro labourers predominate : make large estates more possible, render 

 the use of machinen.' in farm work less convenient and, together with the 

 special cUmatic conditions, contribute to prevent the immigration of Eu- 

 ropean labourers. With respect to this it is easy to see that the foreign 

 farm labourers are least numerous where the negro labourers are most 

 plentiful. They were distribued in fact in 1900 as follows in the \ arious 

 parts of the Union : 



North Atlantic States 62,985 



South Atlantic " 2,819 



North Central " 142,394 



South Central " 21,136 



Western " 29,145 



Total .... 258,479 



The importance of black labour for American agriculture is, finally, to 

 be considered in relation to the cultivation of cotton. Before the abohtion 

 of slaver>^ cotton formed the principal produce of the Southern States ; 

 and even to day, in spite of the competition of new countries and the se- 

 vere losses caused by the cotton boll wee\'il {Anthonomns grandis). the 

 Southern States of the North American Union are still among the principal 

 cotton producers in the world. Today more than half the cotton produced 

 by the United States is cultivated by negroes: they are, through long tradi- 

 tion, and on account of their power of resistance to the cUmate, the heat 

 and malarial fever, excellently fitted for this class of labour. 



§ 3. Share tenancies of various form and leases. 



If a tendency to a comparative decrease of negro agricultural labourers 

 is observable, on the other hand, we find an increase in the various forms 

 of share tenancy and lease. This is a further progress of the negro 

 labourer, who, having passed from slavery to the free lease of his labour, 

 is now seeking higher and more independent economic positions. 



This advance was first made possible by the conditions of agriculture 

 we have mentioned in the Southern States, after the abolition of slavery: 

 on the one hand, the economic crisis through which the landowners, ruined 

 by the war and deprived of their principal wealth, their slaves, had to 

 pass ; on the other, the difficulty of retaining the negroes for agriculture at 

 the moment at which the tendency to rural exodus was strongest. A compro- 

 mise had therefore to be come to between the landlords and the labourers 

 who had no land ; this led to various forms of share tenancy, which 

 were at first, in the ultimate analysis, a mere disguise of simple liire of 

 labour; intended to keep the labourer on the farm until after the harvest 

 by postponing to that date the payment of the wages in kind. 



