AGRICULTURE. 121 



consequently the farm statistics of that period are of little 

 value for our purposes, on account of the uncertainty as to 

 the total number of farms and the ignorance of the negro 

 proprietors. Another difficulty is that currency values in 

 1870 were inflated about 25 per cent as a result of the war 

 a few years before. We may therefore pass on to the cen- 

 sus of 1880. Statistics for 1880 and 1890 are given in Table 

 32, in the same manner as before, except that in 1880 tilled 

 land was separated from pastures and orchards, and the 

 number of chickens, the expenditures for fertilizers, and 

 the value of products are given for the first time. 



Here we see the eastern division of the red hills over- 

 taking the western in percentage of farm land, both im- 

 proved and unimproved, indicating that the pioneer days 

 of lumbering and grazing are passing. The most valuable 

 farms are in Mobile County again, but Baldwin and Escam- 

 bia still lead in most kinds of livestock. The expenditure for 

 fertilizers and the value of products are highest on the poor- 

 est soils, and especially in Mobile County, where intensive 

 farming is stimulated by the proximity of a city. Although 

 there is no record of the expenditure for fertilizers previous 

 to 1879-80, it was undoubtedly less at earlier periods, for 

 the sources of the principal commercial fertilizers that we 

 now use, such as potash, phosphoric acid and nitrates, hard- 

 ly began to be exploited until after the Civil War. (Before 

 that time the impoverishment of soils in the South by con- 

 tinued cultivation was a source of much anxiety, and the 

 usual way of getting around it was to abandon old fields 

 and clear new ones.) 



In 1900 the farmers were divided according to race and 

 tenure in some of the statistics, and the value of buildings 

 was first returned separately from that of land, which was 

 a distinct improvement. And by 1910 the establishment of 

 Houston County (by the Legislature of 1903) made pos- 

 sible for the first time some statistics of farming in the 

 lime-sink region. Expenditures for farm labor were first 

 returned in 1900 and for stock feed in 1910. Tables 33 and 

 34 illustrate conditions in 1900 ; the former being similar to 

 the next preceding with a few additions, and the latter giv- 

 ing some data on race and farm tenure. 



