82 RESOURCES OF SOUTHERN ALABAMA. 



zers, labor and feed (indicating intensive farming), and the 

 value of crops per acre. The value of livestock per farm 

 has decreased, but only in about the same ratio as the size 

 of farms. In the preponderance of horses over mules this 

 region differs from those previously described, but resembles 

 most parts of Florida; probably chiefly on account of the 

 large extent of free range. 



The percentage of foreigners is larger among the farm- 

 ers than among the total population, which is a little un- 

 usual, while the reverse is true of the negroes, in accord- 

 ance with the general principle already pointed out, that 

 the numbers of the two races are more nearly equal in town 

 than in the country. The large percentage of owners is 

 doubtless correlated with the cheapness of the land, as may 

 be observed in many other states. 



The separate tables for Mobile County bring out some 

 significant facts. The existence of a large local market 

 encourages truck farming and dairying, and makes the 

 farms smaller but more valuable than in the other coun- 

 ties. Raising early vegetables for northern markets is also 

 favored by the existence of a considerable area of nearly 

 level and easily tilled land close to the Bay, with milder 

 winters than in any part of the State farther inland. The 

 intensity of the farming around Mobile is well shown by the 

 high expenditures and the correspondingly high crop values 

 in Mobile County. But like most other Alabama counties, 

 this is inconveniently large for geographical statistics, and 

 if we only had separate returns for the southern or the 

 eastern half of it the contrasts would be still greater. 



Statistics for Indian farmers are too fragmentary to put 

 in the tables, but on subtracting the returns for negro farm- 

 ers in 1910 from those for total colored in Clarke, Monroe, 

 Escambia and Covington Counties it appears that in 1910 

 there were in those counties 50 Indian farmers,* with an 

 average of 145 acres owned or rented and 27 improved, land 

 worth $1,112 per farm, buildings $354, and implements and 

 machinery $165. The figures for buildings and machinery 

 seem rather high, but may indicate errors in the census. 



The leading crops in Baldwin and Escambia Counties in 

 1909, in order of value, were cotton, corn, sweet potatoes, 

 "vegetables," hay, Irish potatoes, strawberries, oats, tobac- 



*The census credits Washington County with 172 Indians but no 

 Indian farmers, strange to say. 



