TENANCY IN THE SOUTHERN STATES 531 



his proportional share of corn and oats and about half his 

 proportional share of hay and other forage crops, and he owns 

 less than half his proportion of the live stock. 



In buildings the tenant is still further short, having hardly 

 more than one-fourth the value of such equipment as is found 

 on the farms of owners. In machinery the proportion is not 

 quite so low as in buildings. In the North the tenant manages 

 not far from nine thousand dollars' worth of land and equipment. 

 In the South he has the management, with much less independ- 

 ence, of a farm with its equipment worth not over one-fifth as 

 much. The Northern tenant is substantially an independent 

 farmer ; the Southern tenant is not. 



The Census Bureau in 1900 made a very interesting study of 

 negro tenancy for selected counties, taking for certain states the 

 fifteen counties with the largest proportion of colored farmers, and 

 the fifteen counties with the smallest proportion. It was found 

 that unmistakably the proportion of owned farms was higher 

 where the negroes were few than where they were many. The 

 conclusion was that " the negro, at least, makes the better progress 

 the more closely he is associated with the white man and the more 

 he is enabled to see in the example of the white man an incentive 

 for becoming a landowner. Take away this example by segregat- 

 ing the colored man from the white, as in the black belt of the 

 South, repeat Haiti in a lesser degree, and some of the Haitian 

 conditions are reproduced." A similar study of the 1910 data for 

 four of these states (Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas) 

 fails to reveal a further development in the direction indicated by 

 the investigation of 1900. In the blackest counties there was, 

 it is true, a decrease in the percentage of negro owners, likewise 

 of white owners. But unfortunately for the theory that negroes 

 scattered among white would be inspired to greater efforts and 

 greater achievements, the negro owners under these conditions 

 also decreased. They decreased at even a greater rate than in the 

 black belt, as may be seen in the table on the next page. 



