TENANCY AND OWNERSHIP AMONG NEGRO FARMERS 5 
Much of the county is in woodland, the percentage in this class of 
land being practically what it was in 1870, the first time for which 
data are available for woodland. At present, 57.9 per cent of the total 
farm acreage of the county is classed as woodland. Much of this is 
not used for any farm purposes whatever, uot even for grazing, but 
some revenue is obtained from the woodland by the sale of hickory 
timber for industrial purposes and other timber for railroad crossties. 
CROPS GROWN IN THIS SECTION 
More than 99 per cent of all the land in crops was devoted to three 
crops, which in tne order of amount of acreage devoted to each were 
peanuts, corn, and cotton. 
Corn has always been one of the main crops in the county as far 
back as crop acreage statistics are available. The census figures for 
the county as a whole show that, in 1919, 34.8 per cent of all crop 
land was in corn. The percentage of all crop land in corn for the 
farms surveyed was 36.8 per cent, slightly above the census figure. 
Peanuts form the most important crop of the section. About 45 
per cent of all crop land on the farms surveyed was planted to this 
crop. The 1919 census shows that 36.4 per cent of the total crop 
acreage of the county was in peanuts. It would seem, therefore, that 
negro farmers emphasized peanut production more than did the aver- 
age farmer of the county, possibly because a larger proportion of 
the soil adapted to peanuts is occupied by negroes than by white 
farmers. 
Cotton was secondary to peanuts on practically all of the farms 
surveyed. Both peanuts and cotton are distinctly cash crops and 
the machinery needed for planting and growing these two crops is 
almost identical. The machinery required for harvesting and pre- 
paring the two crops for market is different, but this machinery is 
rarely owned by the individual farm operator, especially the tenant 
operator. For these reasons, cotton and peanuts are frequently 
interchanged from year to year in a manner that is adjustable to the 
relative price prospects of the two crops. If the price of peanuts is 
low and the price of cotton is high, as was the case in 1921 when the 
survey was made, the area planted to cotton is usually much above the 
average. This increase in acreage of cotton is nearly always made 
at the expense of the peanut area. When price conditions favor 
peanuts, the shift is in the other direction. This shift is made with 
practically no extra expense and inconvenience, and it is probably 
fortunate for the farmers of the area that they have two readily 
interchangeable cash crops. 
This position of cotton as related to peanuts is strikingly shown in 
Table 1 (p. 4 which shows that the acreage of cotton has increased 
since 1900, when prices were extremely low, from 4.7 per cent of the 
total crop acreage to 14.7 of the crop acreage in 1919, when prices 
of cotton as compared with prices of peanuts were relatively high. 
CHANGES IN SIZE OF FARMS 
The large increase in number of farms without a corresponding 
increase in farm acreage suggests a decrease in size of farms. The 
change reflects a process of subdivision of the large holdings of the 
ante bellum period, a process which was very rapid from 1870 to 
1880, and again after 1890. The average size of farms decreased from 
