THE SIZE OF FARMS 



are operated by negroes and that farms operated 

 by negroes are usually comparatively small, about 

 nine-tenths of the negro farmers having been 

 found to occupy farms of less than fifty acres in 

 extent. 



Small farms in the cotton belt have not always 

 been so common, as is shown by the rapid decline 

 in the average size of farms in the southern states 

 since 1860. In the South Central division where 

 the decline in the size of farms has been most 

 marked, the "average number of acres per farm 

 was 321.3 in 1860, and 155.4 in 1900. This is 

 the result of replacing the plantation system with 

 the tenant system after the slaves had been eman- 

 cipated. The questions of the labor supply and 

 the size of farms are here closely associated. It 

 may well be questioned if the change from large 

 to small farms in the production of cotton has 

 been of any economic advantage either to the 

 farmers or to the country as a whole. 



B. The size of farms in England. 1 There 

 were 380,179 farms ("agricultural holdings") in 

 England in 1895. These holdings, or farms, con- 

 tained in the aggregate, 24,844,688 acres of im- 

 proved land, that is, land under crops, bare fal- 

 low, or grass. The average number of improved 

 acres per farm was, therefore, slightly more than 

 sixty-five. These figures include all of the hold- 



1 Board of Agriculture, Returns as to the number and size 

 of agricultural holdings in Great Britain in the year 1895, 

 Parliamentary Papers, C. 8243, p. 3. 



131 



