50 BULLETIN 1269, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
There are other similar cases. One is a school for Mexican children 
on a plantation in south Texas. Another planter in the Brazos Valley 
encourages community interest in connection with the plantation 
church. The landlord contributed a reasonable fund to building the 
house, and allows 20 acres of land rent free, which is cultivated by 
the congregation to obtain funds for religious activities. Good 
churches and lodges are said to hold tenants on the farm. 
Other community interests encouraged for the same purpose are 
the publication of local papers, playgrounds, annual picnics, and 
barbecues. Some plantations give grounds and equipment for base- 
ball, and play equipment for children, to be used on Saturday after- 
noons and holidays. These are usually supervised. The annual 
barbecue, an old attraction, is still one of the best. The tenants 
usually make some kind of contribution, but the landlord bears 
most of the expense. 
Some planters attempt to build up a stable tenantry by selection 
and elimination. The body of workers is built around certain 
Fig. 12.— This plantation school in the Mississippi- Yazoo Delta is provided by the plantation owner for 
negro children living on the plantation. Building to the left has four classrooms with modern equip- 
ment. To the right is the teachers' cottage. The shed in the center, which incloses artesian well and 
drinking fountain, affords a playground on rainy days. This school equipment is exceptional. 
reliable tenants who are public-spirited and loyal to the plantation 
and who exercise a good influence over those inclined to become 
dissatisfied. The undesirable ones are eliminated as quickly as pos- 
sible. Tenant families living without legal marital relations are not 
allowed on some plantations. Plantation operators express the 
opinion that illegal marriages, in addition to their immoral effects, 
frequently result in separation which too often leads to crop abandon- 
ment at critical seasons. Comfortable dwellings, such as shown in 
Figure 13, attract the better classes. 
Frizes are used to stimulate tenants to exercise energy and ojood 
judgment. These are based on the highest yield per acre, the best 
work at a given time in harvesting the crop, or the earliest settlement 
of account. A large plantation in the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta, to 
encourage early picking, allows in addition to $2 for the first cotton 
bloom, $5 per bale for good and strict middling cotton, $2.50 per bale 
for middling, nod si per bale for all below middling grade. 
When reliable tenants are obtained, it is considered good policy 
for (lie landlord to give the tenant every encouragement to accumulate 
