VALUE OF A SMALL PLOT OF GROUND. 3 
village. (See pi. II.) The operatives pay a nominal rent for the 
use of the dwellings, rarely exceeding $1 a month per room. The 
average size of house is three to four rooms per family. The houses 
are built on separate lots, which vary considerably in size in the dif- 
ferent villages. One-fourth of an acre is a fair average size. This 
extra space on the house lot is intended especially for garden or 
poultry uses. This organization of an industrial community is pe- 
culiar to cotton-mill villages. In addition to the land around the 
houses provided for gardens the company often sets apart a pasture 
immediately adjoining the mill village for the free pasturage of the 
operatives' cows. 
Some mill owners offer other inducements to the operatives. One 
company has a demonstration garden of half an acre. An expert is 
employed to grow a great variety of vegetables, showing the best 
cultural methods for each variety. The plot is intended as a model 
in planning a garden and creates much local interest in gardening. 
Another mill owner has a pure-bred dairy bull, whose services are 
free to the operatives owning cows. 
In a number of villages interest in gardening is stimulated by 
offering prizes for the best gardens. The scoring is based on general 
appearances. This has the general effect of cleaning up the village 
and encourages the growing of flowers as well as vegetables. The 
front yard is beautified along with the back yard (see PI. III). In 
no village visited, however, were prizes offered on the quantity of 
vegetables raised in the garden. This logically might be the next 
step. The family raising the most vegetables naturally will tend to 
keep the surroundings of the home in good order and at the same 
time to be better off financially. 
QUANTITY AND VALUE OF FOOD RAISED BY COTTON-MILL 
OPERATIVES. 
A large number of families were visited in nine different mill vil- 
lages in the western parts of North Carolina and South Carolina to 
gain an idea of the economies of the vegetable garden, the small 
poultry flock, and the family cow under village conditions. The 
survey method was used in collecting the information. Effort was 
made to avoid the unusual and to study plots representing average 
conditions. 
Records were taken of 548 gardens, 165 poultry flocks, 74 cows, 
and 62 hogs. It is felt that the number of records of each enterprise 
is sufficient to arrive at a fair average of actual conditions. Some of 
the families fed their stock at a loss and others had poor returns 
from their gardens. The data thus represent the result of poor 
management as well as of good. 
