The Negro's Agricultural Opportunity 57 



made remarkable progress, that is to say a portion of the 

 race has. This progress was aided by the favorable cir- 

 cumstances which have been outlined. Nevertheless, lack 

 of foresight and thrift, and absence of previous training 

 has kept the masses of Negroes from participating in this 

 advance. The significant fact is, however, that an increas- 

 ing though small number of Negroes is passing from the 

 status of laborer to that of tenant and owner. The degree 

 to which this is taking place in Georgia is indicated in the 

 following treatment of the growth of ownership and tenancy 

 among the Negroes. 



NEGRO LAND-OWNERS. 



1. Number of Holdings. — According to the census of 

 1910, 15,815 farms were operated by Negro owners in 

 Georgia. These owners represent only 3.6 per cent of the 

 Negro rural population over 25 years of age, but it is sig- 

 nificant that this number of land-holders has appeared in 

 50 years from among a people who were, at the beginning 

 of the period, almost entirely unlettered and characterized 

 as lacking in any degree of foresight. The number of 

 Negroes operating owned farms, as enumerated by the cen- 

 sus, is somewhat less than the number owning land as re- 

 ported on the books of the comptroller general of the State. 

 This is due to the fact that the "improved land" reported 

 to the comptroller general for taxation includes some tracts 

 of rural land which are not operated as farms. In 1903, 

 Banks worked out the number of Negro landholdings from 

 the original tax digests of the State and concluded that 

 there were 18,700 Negro landholdings as against 11,583 

 Negroes reported as operating owned farms by the census 

 of 1900. It is therefore probable that the actual number 

 of tracts of land owned by Negroes was from two-fifths to 

 two- thirds higher than the number of tracts reported by 

 the census as utilized for agriculture by Negro owners 



