TENANCY AND OWNERSHIP AMONG NEGRO FARMERS 
25 
Table 23. — Owners and tenants classified by average number of years on various 
farms occupied 
Average years between changes 
of farms 
Owners 
Tenants 
Average years between changes 
of farms 
Owners 
Tenants 
0-1 
Number 
6 
21 
32 
33 
26 
12 
8 
Number 
9 
33 
49 
18 
2 
14-15... 
Number 
4 
1 
1 
1 
Number 
2-3 
16-17... 
4-5 _ 
18-19... . 
6-7 
20-21 
8-9 .. 
1 
10-11 
12-13. .. 
» 146 
i 111 
1 Information not available for total number of owners and tenants. 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 
In Southampton County, Va., negro farmers have tended grad- 
ually to increase in relative number as compared with white farmers. 
Negro farmers have made encouraging progress in climbing to inde- 
pendent farm ownership, but the great increase in the price of farm 
real estate which occurred in the decade 1910 to 1920 tended to check 
this progress. 
Since the Civil War notable progress has been made in the accu- 
mulation of wealth. The low price of land in the early post-bellum 
days favored the attainment of land ownership. The rapid increase 
in the value of timber products afforded many of these farmers a 
means of employing their labor profitably in disposing of the timber 
on their land and facilitated clearing for crops. The rapid develop- 
ment of the market for peanuts and the improvement in the price of 
cotton following the early nineties, and intensified by the World 
War, have also been favorable conditions. The net worth of the 
majority of the owner farmers has also been largely developed by the 
rapid increase in the price of land. 
The progress achieved has been accomplished in spite of a none too 
favorable credit system. The majority of the farmers had not made 
use of the facilities of the farm-loan system, largely because they 
were not aware of its advantages and of the proper methods of pro- 
cedure in obtaining loans. As in other parts of the South, there has 
been an undue reliance on store credit as a means of supplying short- 
time credit needs. 
Progress in accumulation is closely related to reliance on the farm 
as a source of food supplies. Although the best accumulators made 
the largest use of home-grown foods, this reliance did not greatty 
reduce the dependence on store purchases, but rather tended to 
amplify the standard of living. 
Superior education apparently had not been an outstanding reason 
for superiorit} 7 in accumulation, although the best accumulators had 
attained a slightly higher grade in school than those who were less 
successful in accumulation. 
The more successful were apparently giving their children some- 
what greater educational advantages than were enjoyed by the chil- 
dren of the less successful. With the exception of a few of the 
