10 BULLETIN 492, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



groups ranking high in percentage of crop area. The lack of a cor- 

 relation between size of farm and value of real estate per acre is 

 perhaps clue to social conditions more than to any other one factor. 

 In other tables it is shown that only the large farms can support 

 an overseer or manager, and that on these large farms the operator's 

 time is almost entirely taken up in the supervising of the business. 

 The operator of the large farm can therefore, if need be, live at a 

 distance from his farm lands, choosing a communitjr where his 

 family can have the best advantages. Usually the small farmer is 

 not able to do this and is often compelled to live under very unde- 

 sirable conditions. The location of many of these small farms is such 

 that they will not sell for more per acre than large plantation land. 

 The average value of real estate on the 2G8 farms was $34 per acre. 



FARM TENURE. 



In this study, which covers the data received from 534 farm oper- 

 ators, there were found 299 farmers owning a part or the entire farm 

 operated; 268 of these farms were owned by white and 31 by colored 

 farmers ; the other 235 farms were operated by tenants, of which 49 

 were white and 186 colored. 



The owner-farms were operated under three distinct forms of 

 tenure, namely, that of " straight owner," or those who have the 

 entire supervision of all their farming land ; " owner renting addi- 

 tional," or those who not only operate their own land but also rent 

 additional land and operate this along with their own farm as one 

 unit ; and " owner with part rented out." The latter usually include 

 the larger farms, the owners of which in order to shift a share of the 

 responsibility and to experience less risk, rent out a part of their 

 farms to tenants, who furnish the working capital, perform all the 

 labor, and give the owners a fixed amount of lint cotton for the use of 

 the land. It is on farms held under this last-mentioned tenure that 

 man} 7 of the tenants included in this study, especially the colored 

 tenants, were found. The farms operated by tenants are all compara- 

 tively small, but the farms operated by owners comprise, in many 

 cases, several thousand acres. 



The economic and social conditions of the South are of a very 

 different nature from those of the northern States, and the fact that 

 these conditions are changing from time to time makes necessary 

 readjustments of the relations of races. In 1860 the negroes repre- 

 sented 52 per cent of the total population of the county, in 1880 they 

 represented 66 per cent, and in 1910, 73 per cent. This condition is 

 attributable not only to natural increase, but to an increased demand 

 for negro labor in this fertile section over that of less productive 



