18 RESOURCES OF SOUTHERN ALABAMA. 



largest proportion of improved land generally has the high- 

 est average fertility. 



The ratio of improved land to population indicates rough- 

 ly the relative importance of agriculture to other indus- 

 tries in a given region, being of course low in newly settled 

 regions where there is considerable hunting, lumbering, and 

 grazing on open ranges, and also in old regions where most 

 of the people get their living from manufactures or com- 

 merce. 



The average size of farms, which is ascertainable for 

 every census since 1850 by dividing the total farm area by 

 the number of farms,* is correlated with the type of farm- 

 ing that prevails, cotton plantations and stock farms being 

 usually considerably larger than truck farms. The number 

 of improved acres per farm is more significant, however, for 

 some large farms, particularly in the southern tier of coun- 

 ties and the long-leaf pine regions of other states, consist 

 mostly of woodland on which little or no labor or money is 

 expended and which serves mainly as pasturage. 



The values of land, buildings, implements, and live-stock 

 (returned at each census since 1850, though land and build- 

 ings were combined until 1900) per average farm, vary sig- 

 nificantly in different regions, also largely on account of soil 

 differences, and are very important as indicating to the new- 

 comer how much capital he should have in order to start in 

 on the same scale as his neighbors. The proportion of white 

 and colored farmers and of owners and tenants, first re- 

 turned in 1900, also reflects social and economic conditions. 

 The values of land, buildings, etc., for the two races sepa- 

 rately are given in a census volume published late in 1918, 

 and it will be seen that there is a considerable difference in 

 their standards of living. 



The number of farm animals of different kinds is given 

 more or less completely by each census since 1850, and the 

 expenditure for fertilizers was first returned in 1880, that 

 for labor in 1890, and for feed in 1900. The yield of dif- 

 ferent crops in each county has been returned ever since 

 1840, but usually without going into details of value for 



*The number of farms in each county in 1850 is not given in the 

 large quarto volume issued in 1853, which was intended to contain all 

 the published results of that census, but in the small octavo "Com- 

 pendium," of 1854. For 1860 there are some discrepancies in the 

 returns published in different tables, apparently chiefly because some 

 included farms of less than three acres and some did not. 



