TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH, 



CHAPTER I. 

 LABOR. 



Owing to the perishable nature of the products, the 

 areas at the South devoted to truck-farming must remain 

 confined to certain limits. These will be near the larger 

 cities and along the routes of railroads, by which products 

 can be safely and expeditiously dispatched to market. 

 Although truck-farming can employ but a comparatively 

 small proportion of the labor of the South, it must be 

 followed according to the same principles and system 

 that govern general agriculture. 



The negro must be accepted as the only practical 

 solution of the labor question, and, notwithstanding 

 his instability, he is the best for many reasons. It 

 would be impolitic, even were it possible, to trust to 

 more intelligent and energetic laborers from abroad, and 

 mix the two races as field laborers. No dependence could 

 be placed upon retaining the foreign help, as his greater 

 energy and a praiseworthy desire for self-elevation would 

 soon prompt the emigrant, or white laborer, to change 

 his status and better his condition. 



Accepting the negro as the God-given instrument for 

 the development of the agricultural resources of the 

 South, while profiting by his general wastefulness and 

 improvidence for his own good and our own, it should 

 be the constant aim of every employer, who has the wel- 

 fare of southern agriculture at heart, to elevate the labor- 

 er. The employer can, by strict justice, fairness and 



(7) 



