THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
649 
1847 
"7 HE NEW BLACK MAN/’ 
WHAT HK IS TRYING TO DO. 
A “Negro Conference” in Alabama. 
Part VI. 
It seems to me a mistake to urge the negro to leave 
the South. That is his home. His hand labor made 
it what it is. In the northern town and city, he 
changes his character. Paul Lawrence Dunbar well 
describes the changes that are observed in the negro 
after years spent in the lower wards of New York. 
These people have a right to the joy of life. But they are sell¬ 
ing their birthright for a mess of pottage—and such pottage! 
They have given up the fields for the gutters. They have bar¬ 
tered the sweet-smelling earth of their freshly turned furrows for 
the stenches of metropolitan alleys. They have lost the step of 
the brawny tiller of the soil. They do not walk like clod-hoppers, 
but they creep like vermin. Is It an improvement ? They are 
ashamed of all the old simple delights, and cannot reach to the 
perfection of pure new ones. They have ceased, in great part, to 
play their simple melodies on the banjo, and strum out “ rags ” 
on the piano. The sensuousness that gave them warmth and 
glow has subsided Into a hard sensuality that makes them gross. 
They have forgotten to laugh and have learned to sneer. 
The negro belongs to the soil of the South. J Le rep¬ 
resents the only true class of those who make farm 
labor a profession that we have in America. In 
Europe, the farm laborer has a trade much the same 
as that of carpenter or mechanic. In most parts of 
America, the farm laborer is, usually, restless or dis¬ 
contented, going through his tasks to “ kill time ” 
while waiting for something better. Either that or a 
hopeless, disgruntled servant. 
The chance for “ the New Black Man ” lies in mak¬ 
ing of himself a skilled farm laborer. The South 
offers the best opportunity for him because skill is at 
a premium. Various causes have kept skilled labor 
away from the South. In the North, the negro would 
soon be crowded out by competition. The northern 
mechanic has three or four generations of skilled 
workmen back of him—the negro has but slave labor 
in his pedigree. How can he compete with inherited 
skill except by cheapening the price of a day’s work ? 
In the North, too, modern business methods have 
crowded out of existence the little shops that formerly 
stood in country villages and at small water powers. 
These things are different at the South. The farms, 
and even the towns, are still, in large part, supplied 
with small manufactured articles, and even food, from 
the North and West. In fact, the South, so far as 
her industries are concerned, is where New England 
was 50 and 75 years ago ; with the advantage that her 
natural resources are within reach of all the advan¬ 
tages which science has given during the past half 
century. The skilled man, be he black or white, 
may go back to the water powers and make over 
the cheap lumber and iron into articles which are 
needed near at home. The “ old fields ” and wasted 
farm lands, too, offer opportunities to “ The New 
Black Man ” that cannot be found in other parts of 
the country. He cannot afford to buy high-priced 
land. The thing for him to do is to put the phosphoric 
acid of good brains into this waste land and increase 
its value. 
While in Alabama last winter, I met a Michi¬ 
gan man who was prospecting for cheap land. His 
story in brief was this: He has a hay farm in 
Michigan on drained swamp land that, for years, had 
given heavy crops. It had, at last, come to the point 
where fertilizers were necessary in order to keep up 
the yield. This man proposed selling out before this 
soil exhaustion became evident to the ordinary buyer, 
and thus obtain a price based on the good reputation 
of the farm. With this money obtained from the farm, 
he hoped to buy southern land that had been so hurt 
by poor farming that the price was far below its real 
value. By good culture and the use of fertilizers and 
cow peas, he expected to double the producing, hence 
the selling, value of this land, and then to sell out 
and possibly buy back his Michigan farm after the 
new owner had still further reduced its value. 
Yankee-like, -this man was paying his expenses by 
selling several small articles. In one way, this man 
had a true idea of the value of land for farming pur¬ 
poses. Location counts for much, but most buyers 
value the land for what it will produce. A few farmers 
estimate this value at what the land can be made to 
produce , and these men usually make money on every 
farm they buy and sell. Let a man buy a farm that 
has the reputation of producing 25 bushels of shelled 
corn to the acre, and so improve it that the 25-bushel 
average will be raised to 40, and the selling value of 
the farm will, undoubtedly, be raised. Let a farmer 
decrease the average yield from 40 to 25 bushels and, 
naturally, the selling price will be reduced. There 
are farmers who know how to increase the productive 
capacity of poor land, and do so at a profit. Such 
men work on much the same principle as those who 
buy bankrupt railroads or badly managed factories 
and develop them into paying enterprises. 
That is the lesson which “ The New Black Man ” is 
slowly learning. His mission is to take hold of wasted 
or undeveloped southern resources—of land, power, 
market or small manufactures—and revive or im¬ 
prove them by the application of skill and care. 
Many of those who know the negro only as a care¬ 
less and improvident creature, who places stomach 
above either mind or back, may smile at the sugges¬ 
tion of skilled or careful work from such a quarter. 
They simply do not realize the possibilities of good 
industrial training. Could they but spend one un¬ 
prejudiced day at such an institution as that at 
Tuskegee, they would be forced to admit the possi¬ 
bilities of the negro race as a stock on which to graft 
skilled labor. h. w. c. 
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Three Years’ Experience with Separators. 
Tkoy, Bradford Co., Penn., July 21, 1897. 
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Woodstock Creamery Association. 
Thirteen Years’ Success with Cream-Gathering. 
Melrose, Conn., July 19, 1897. 
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