CHAPTER V 



THE SYSTEMS OF FARMING BASED ON THE RELATION OF 

 THE FARMER TO THE SOIL 



Thus far attention has been directed to the distribu- 

 tion of lands among the people of the state from the 

 point of view of ownership. It is the purpose of this 

 chapter to describe the leading characteristics of the 

 several other forms of land tenure that have been de- 

 veloped in Georgia since the war and to disclose some 

 of the forces which will in a measure explain their rise, 

 their extension and their retention. In the next chapter 

 an attempt will be made to analyze the inner economic 

 workings of these various plans of land tenure as sys- 

 tems of production and distribution. 



By recalling the condition in which most of the land- 

 owners and freedmen found themselves immediately after 

 the war, it is not difficult to understand the rise of what 

 is called the " cropping " plan of farming. Rarely does 

 it happen that an arrangement can be so easily and surely 

 explained as the product of the existing economic situa- 

 tion. The landowners had no capital except land arM 

 the freedman lacked even land. Some landlords on the 

 strength of their credit, which stood high in ante-bellum 

 days, adopted the plan of working their plantations with 

 hired laborers. However, the conditions of the moment 

 were unfavorable to the success of this arrangement, in- 

 asmuch as the negroes, just liberated, naturally felt dis- 

 posed to experience the joys of unhindered movements. 

 78 [78 



