236 



BUREAU OF AlVIERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



[Bull. 196 



progressive farmer to be less than fullblood,^ the data on agriculture 

 were examined with respect to Indian inheritance. Table 3 seems to 

 confirm the impression. 



Table 3. — Analysis of the Indian inheritance of full-time farmers * 



Indian degree of inheritance 



Number 



Percent 



^y64-0H4. 



Total. 



44 



100. 00 



> Data secured from Extension Office, Cherokee, July 1960. 



Raymond Fogelson (MS., 1958, p. 25) suggests that, "The ready 

 adoption of white-Euro-American farming techniques originally took 

 place mainly among the mixed blood population occupying the fav- 

 orable Georgia bottom lands." This is true, but writers on the East- 

 ern Band also remark on the quality of farming among the Cherokee 

 in the 19th century,® An informant describing Big Cove said: 



You know, when I was a girl this whole bottom was covered with corn and beans, 

 and people had hogs. We had all we wanted to eat. The man that raised me 

 had about thirty hogs. (My mother gave me away.) He said that when he died, 

 it would all go away and it did, too. People don't farm any more — rather work 

 for cash, I guess — but things were better then. 



In examining these reports more closely, the farming which is men- 

 tioned so often is actually a subsistence type and follows closely the 

 aboriginal pattern of hunting-gardening. Thomas (MS. a, pp. 33-34) 

 states that cash-crop farming was taken over by a few as game declined, 

 but was discarded at the first opportunity for wage labor. 



Today the dominant type of farming is subsistence. The main cash 

 crop is tobacco ; however, the average allotments are very small. The 

 largest farmer, who has more than 100 acres of land, has nine-tenths 

 of an acre allotment. He recently put in an acre of strawberries as an 

 additional cash crop. Beef is becoming more important as a result of 

 improved pastures, but the largest herd has only about 30 head. 

 Vegetable production for commercial markets is very limited, although 

 a few of the village restaurants purchase beans and potatoes grown 

 locally. The goals of the Extension Division include a movement 

 toward part-time farming and good home gardens.^" 



8 County Agent, personal conference, June 15, 1960. 



» Cf. above, pp. 229, 231. 



1" Personal conference, County Agent, July 1960. 



