STUDY OP FARMING IN SUMTER COUNTY, GEORGIA. 



49 



Table XXIII. 



-Relation of size of farm to yield per acre of crops on 186 farms 

 operated by colored tenants, Sumter County, Oa. 



Crop. 



Yiold per 



acre of crops in each 

 tilled acreage group 



specified 



50 acros 

 and loss. 



51 to 100 

 acres. 



Over 100 

 acres. 



Total. 



Wage cotton 



bales.. 



do.... 



do.... 



do.... 



do.... 



do 



0.40 

 .43 



0.43 

 .43 



0.44 

 .41 



0. 42 

 .41 



Total cotton 



.41 



.43 



.43 



.42 



Share-cropper corn 



8 

 6 



9 

 9 



8 

 9 



9 



9 



Total corn 



8 



9 



9 



9 





10 



.59 

 68 

 116 



17 



.66 

 94 

 131 



16 



.40 

 59 

 175 



16 



Sweet potatoes 





.52 

 79 

 138 



There was an average of 16 acres of corn per farm, with a yield of 

 only 9 bushels per acre. If their average yield had been as high as 

 that of the owners shown in Table XXII these men would have 

 averaged nearly 100 more bushels of corn for farm and home use. 

 This would have reduced their feed bill, shown in Table XXI, con- 

 siderably. Cotton and corn, as shown in previous tables, occupied 

 over 90 per cent of the crop area worked by these tenants, and many 

 of them had practically all their tilled area in these two crops. 



A total of 50 acres of sweet potatoes, or a little over one-fourth 

 acre per farm, were raised by the tenants, with an average yield of 

 79 bushels per acre. 



An average of less than one- fourth acre of sugar cane was grown, 

 with a yield of 138 gallons of cane sirup per acre. 



Oats for grain were not grown so generally by the colored as by 

 the white farmers. The oats that were cut for grain averaged less 

 than 1 acre per farm, with a yield of about 16 bushels per acre. 

 Eighty per cent of the oats raised by these farmers was cut for hay, 

 with an average yield of 0.66 ton per acre. There was an average 

 of about 2 acres of cowpeas for hay grown on these farms, which 

 yielded 0.52 ton per acre. 



The size of the farm operated by these tenants has very little 

 bearing on method of operation or yields received. By only a slight 

 change in the management of these farms they could be made to 

 return adequate forage and grain crops for farm and home use. 

 While about 10 per cent of these men operate farms with poorer soil, 

 the unproductive, impoverished condition of much of the land they 

 farm is due largely to the continuous growing of poor crops of cotton 

 on the same soil year after year by the use of commercial fertilizer 

 and without the addition of anything to the soil in the way of veg- 



