216 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



the entire number of persons gainfully employed in agriculture. The 

 negro agricultural laborers of 1890 numbered 1,006,728, and in 1900 

 they numbered 1,344,116, or a decline from 64.9 to 63.7 per cent in 

 their ratio to negroes of all agricultural occupations. 



Negro farm labor in the South presents special problems which 

 southern farmers fully understand. The census of 1900 disclosed the 

 fact that negro labor was- leaving the farm and migrating to town and 

 city, to the railroad, to the logging and lumbering camp. The negro 

 is still a necessity to southern agriculture, but he is gradually yielding 

 his place to white labor. One of the old arguments in favor of slavery 

 was that a white man could not work in a field under the southern 

 sun, and it is still a common belief in the North that southern farm 

 labor is performed almost exclusively by negroes. This, however, is 

 not the fact. More than half the cotton crop is raised by white labor; 

 in Texas three-fourths or more. In the sugar and rice fields white 

 labor is common and in some places all but exclusive. Negroes are 

 often disposed to migrate in pursuit of chimeras, so that they are 

 easily induced to go to other parts of the country when employment 

 is promised to them, and agents to promote their migration are found 

 where states have not taxed them out of occupation or made it a 

 criminal offense. 



If negroes and whites be combined, the negroes will be found to 

 represent 13.7 per cent of all persons in all gainful occupations in 

 1900, 20.6 per cent of all persons engaged gainfully in agricultural 

 occupations, and 30 . 5 per cent of all agricultural laborers. The per- 

 centages are almost exactly the same for 1890, except that the negro 

 agricultural laborers were 36 . 8 per cent of the white and negro total, 

 so that there was apparent decline in the negro element of agricultural 

 laborers from 1890 to 1900. 



The movement from the city to farm for the purpose of permanent 

 farm life and labor, either for hire or under ownership, has hardly 

 become general enough in this country to present recognizable propor- 

 tions. There is a little of this movement here and a little there, but 

 nearly all cases are sporadic. 



But there is one sort of labor that goes from city to farm which 

 has become large enough to be perceptible, and that is seasonal labor 

 for employment, not in general farming operations, but for special 

 purposes. The migration of men from cities to follow the wheat har- 

 vest from Oklahoma to North Dakota is the best-known feature of 

 this sort of farm labor. It is not so generally known that women and 



