46 Negro Migration 



mately 11,000,000 acres of land in the State was "wild" land 

 which had never been brought within the scope of agricultu- 

 ral operations. It is true that most of the 11,000,000 acres is 

 in the mountainous sections of North Georgia or the pine 

 barrens of the South, but it had value. It was not free land. 

 In many cases it was held speculatively: As Banks 

 states . X1 



"There is really very little or no land outside of the mar- 

 gin of utilization in Georgia, although there is much land 

 lying under such disadvantages, either of fertility or of sit- 

 uation, that it is not actually cultivated, nor will it be culti- 

 vated for many years to come." 



Table 2 indicates that by 1910, the census classified 26, 

 950,000 acres as land in farms. This is an increase of 

 300,000 acres over the 1860 figure. It is therefore evident 

 that during the fifty year period, large tracts of this wild 

 land were taken up for agricultural purposes. 



In the effort to trace the effect of the breakdown of plan 

 tations on the size of tracts held by individual proprietors- 

 Banks examined the original tax returns of 31 rural coun- 



TABLE 3. 



Total Land Proprietorships in Georgia According to Size in 



Acres in 31 Typical Counties. 



(Compiled from Original Tax Returns.) 



Size of Proprietorship 



in acres 1873 1880 1890 1902 



Under 10 193 521 1,490 2,232 



10 to 20 116 341 748 1,288 



20 to 50 905 1,765 2,540 3,712 



50 to 100 2,113 3,535 4,816 6,134 



100 to 500 10,796 12,782 14,526 15,671 



500 to 1,000 2,309 2,344 2,270 2,094 



1,000 and over 1,337 1,302 1,178 1,047 



Total Proprietorships.. 17,769 22,590 27,568 32,178 

 Total Acreage 6,792,954 7,211,476 7,315,975 7,474,802 



Average Acreage 382 319 265 232 



Median Acreage 308 261 218 170 



11 Banks, Economics of Land Tenure, pp. 31-32. 



