COTTON 
37 
Of the 1,418,000 cotton farms reported in 1900, 
849,000 were operated by whites. White farmers 
cultivated 14,616,000 acres, and negro farmers, 
9,650,000 acres. (Of course, though, much negro 
labor was hired to assist in cultivating the white 
farms.) 
THE SHIFTLESS NEGRO TENANT FARMER 
Of the negro farmers more than four-fifths are 
tenants — or about 500,000 of the nearly 600,000 
negro farmers. "Clearly the central feature of the 
Southern farm life of the negro race," says Prof. 
W. E. Du Bois, "is the tenant class — this half mil- 
lion black men who hire farms on various terms, and 
a large proportion of whom stand about midway be- 
tween slavery and ownership." 
One hardly knows whether to say that the negro's 
indifference, his contentment with this lot, makes 
the situation more or less tragical. "Take ye no 
thought for the morrow — what ye shall eat, nor yet 
for your body, what ye shall put on," is one Bible 
commandment which the negro literally obeys. 
And his other favorite commandment is like unto it : 
"Multiply and replenish the earth" — taking equally 
little heed for the morrow of the niggerkins them- 
selves, unless Topsy-like, they "just grow." As an 
old negro whom the writer used to know would say, 
"If I've got a peck of corn meal in the bar'l, I 
ain't got nothin' to worry about." 
"The one-room cabin" says Prof. Du Bois, "is 
still the typical farm home of the negro," and as 
for his food and disposition: 
"Oh, I gits my stren'th from white side meat, 
I sops all de sorghum a nigger kin eat, 
I chaws wheat bread on Saddy night 
En' I ain't no han' to run f'um a fight." 
