48 Negro Migration 



by the appearance of new large proprietorships with a 

 resultant steady growth in the total number of farms. This 

 is statistically indicated in the table by the fact that the aver- 

 age and median size in acres declined so nearly propor- 

 tionately. The arithmetic average was 382 in 1873 and 232 

 in 1902. The median, or that middle sized farm which is 

 larger than half the farms and smaller than half, was 308 in 

 1873 and 170 in 1902. 



The Growth of Tenancy. Although the f oregoing section 

 indicates tha t the increase of small proprietorships has not 

 b een very rapid, the increase in small t enant tanris has been 

 exceptional. While only a small part of the farm la nd of the 

 State has been sold off from the original tracts, a lar^ e part 

 of. these original tract s , though still owned as units r are no 

 lo nger cultivated as units, but are subdivided in to small 

 tenant tracts, and e numerated by thej c ensus , as separate 

 f arms. ... Recognizing the fact that these plantations, com- 

 prising many tenant farms, are different from the propri- 

 etorships in other parts of the country, the Census of 1910 

 conducted a special inquiry as to the extent of the planta- 

 tion system of the South. In this investigation the term 

 plantation was not used, as in ante-bellum days, to mean a 

 tract owned and cultivated altogether by laborers, but 

 merely a tract owned by one man, and cultivated by tenants 

 or laborers. The inquiry covered 70 counties of Georgia, 

 located in typical sections. It excluded tracts with less than 

 five tenants as being too small to really be classed as plan- 

 tations. 13 j 



The results of this inquiry indicate that in the 70 counties 

 there are 6,627 plantations with five or more tenant farms. 

 They include 6,627 landlord farms and 57,003 tenant farms. 

 In other words each plantation is cultivated in part by the 

 owner and in part by tenants. In the general statistics of 



18 United States Census of 1910, Agriculture, Vol. V. "Plan- 

 tations in the South," pp. 877, 885 and 887. 



