most complicated and diversified occupation there is in the world.
It takes a horticulturist to grow apples to perfection. It takes a
dairyman of the best type to put milk and butter on the market to meet
state and county inspection and public approval. It takes a mechanic of
the highest quality to keep up repair on the farm of fences, houses and
machinery. It takes a bookkeeper to keep farm accounts and records. He
must be something of a Wall Street broker to keep up with market prices
so that he will know how and when to sell his farm products. He must be
an electrician and an engineer as well if he is going to compete with
his neighbor who lights his house with a Delco light and runs all of
his machinery with power.
When you come to live stock you have a world without end of necessary
information for your success. Cattle, cows, sheep, hogs, horses,
poultry, bees, and scores of special strains of each, every one of them
requiring special treatment and expert knowledge. If the farmer has
the inclination and the will he can become specialist in any one of
these lines. There are men who do nothing but breed the special brands
of high bred stock. There are those who breed bees and who supply the
world’s demands of purebred queen bees. The higher you go in this
specialization the more you become the world’s greatest benefactor.
I have been studying about the value of limes upon the soils. To be a
first-class farmer you must be a chemist of the first magnitude. You
as farmers, have no idea of the part that chemicals must play in the
production of your crops. The fertilizer that will bring to perfection
one crop will kill another. You must know the fertilizer and know the
nature of the soil on which this fertilizer is to be used and you must
know how well a certain grade of fertilizer is adapted to the seed you
want to produce. Every first-class farm is a chemical laboratory and
the farmer is a chemist. Every first-class farmer must be something
of a physicist as well. Every first-class farmer must be something of
a doctor as well for all animals are subject to bodily disorders that
must be corrected by medical advice. He must also be a weather prophet.
You cut your hay and let the storm come on it and see where your
profits go. You must be able to read the signs in the heavens and the
published directions. Your job is a big one requiring as you go up the
most complicated knowledge about every thing under the sun. I have said
nothing about plant diseases and insect life affecting the success of
the farmer nor that world or destruction hid in the unseen bacteria. As
farmers you may be sluggards moving along on the lowest possible level
of life or you may be a prince living in a palace. There are a lot of
us on the lower levels who ought to move up to the higher gradations.
You can get more out of your farm life but you must _know how_.
If you expect to work simply as a hireling you will not need this
information to any great extent. You only have to do as you are told
to do as a hireling. You may never as a hireling be asked to use even
your own initiative in an emergency. If you expect to manage a farm you
must have initiative and some executive ability. Twenty acres or more
constitute a farm. If you have that much land you are a farmer and you
must move on your own initiative.
The days of ignorant farming are passing. The government cannot and
does not encourage ignorant farming. The times are demanding better
schools and better roads. These two improvements are here and the
farmers must pay the bills. Your farm must make you a living and
enough more to meet these public expenses. If your intelligence will
not make the ends meet, then before a great while the taxes will eat
you up and your land will go into the ownership of men who have the
intelligence to make the land meet the bills for public improvements.
As farmers you must subscribe to every public improvement that comes
into your community. You must buy stocks, bonds and meet public taxes.
These improvements all increase the value of your farm. Selfishness
and personal ends must not hold back community progress in any line.
You are a part of the community and when you hold back its progress
you defeat yourself. Not to know is no longer an excuse. _You must
know._ You cannot stay at home and pride yourself that you never go to
a farmers’ meeting and expect to know. Wherever people are gathered
together to discuss public problems there you may go to learn. There
is where you get in the spirit of things. There is where you get
knowledge. There is where you get the inspiration. The spirit of
rivalry and competition will go a long way to help us in our farm
operations. There is a farmer in Nash County who thinks he can beat
every one else in the county growing watermelons. There is a score of
farmers in his community quietly trying to beat _him_. The result is
that there are better watermelons grown in that community than in any
other community in the county.
RURAL LIFE
(continued)
FARMERS’ CONGRESS, AUGUST 16, 17, 1921
It is worth very much to any man who is interested in agricultural
operations to take a leisurely trip four hundred miles through North
Carolina in an automobile. A party of us left Bricks July 11th and
joined Rev. P. R. DeBerry in Raleigh. Taking his big Studebaker car, we
were off the 12th for a two days trip among the colored farmers of the
central and western part of the state.
We were not touring, nor sightseeing, nor joy riding. Our one purpose
was to study the land, the people and the conditions under which our
colored farmers were living. We wanted to see what conditions were
compatible and what were not compatible. The trip took us through about
eighteen counties.
We started our study in Edgecombe County. This is the county in which
Brick School is located. This county should be the first in all of its
operations because of its educational advantages and the inspiration it
ought to receive from this institution.
There are in the county now about 25,000 Negroes. These Negroes own
4,000 farms and homes, numbering about 17,000 acres of land. Some
individuals own as much as 500 acres. We are sorry to say that most
of this land is not under the most improved condition. We have not
been able to have in this county a full time farm demonstration agent.
The Brick School and our farm meetings have given very much impulse
to farm operations, but even this has not reached all the farmers in
ways to stimulate them to their greatest efforts. We lack time, money
and authority that ought to come directly from the state. It has
been demonstrated in other counties that nothing is so valuable in
stimulating the farmers as a real, live, wide-a-wake farm demonstration
agent who lives and works among the farmers every day. A farm not half
developed and not improved is not an asset to the state nor to the
owner. It ought to come into the highest state of production, then only
does it become wealth.
The school population of this county is about 7,000 children with
an enrollment of about 5,000 children, whose average attendance is
about 3,000 under the compulsory law. The county has a colored school
supervisor who gives the work all of her time. Mrs. Carrie Battle has
revolutionized the school work under her charge. She is insistent and
tireless. Every one knows her and respects her. Her office is in the
courthouse at Tarboro. The white county officials hold her in the
highest esteem. The teachers and schoolhouses rank among the best in
the state for colored people.
I do not know anything that affects public improvements and progress
more than good roads. The farmers are generally slow to vote for good
roads, but no class of people appreciate them more than the farmer
when they are built. The area of the county is 515 square miles, and
yet I have traveled over every part of the county and over some of the
best roads in the state. The local papers tell us that a cement road
leading across the county is now in process of construction. This road
will eventually lead into Raleigh, some fifty miles away.
Halifax County has an area of 681 square miles, with a colored
population of nearly 30,000 souls. They own 70,000 acres of land.
Their school population is around 10,000, with an enrollment of about
7,000, and an average attendance of about 3,000 children. This county
has a colored school supervisor who has done a very fine work among
the colored people. The colored people meet every condition set by the
state and county for the erection of colored schoolhouses. A few months
ago they had raised their part for twelve Rosenwald schoolhouses,
and had to wait on the county and state to recoupe their part. They
will meet any condition set for them. The colored population is not
congested in any one part of the county. They are located in every
section of the county and about evenly distributed. Their homes, for
the most part, are clean, and their houses are well constructed and
show signs of thrift and happiness. Very few colored farmers have
migrated from this section of the state. Those who have gone from
Halifax County can hardly be missed. This in itself shows that the
racial equilibrium is not much disturbed.
Nash County, which joins us on the west, is one of our best farming
communities. The fifteen thousand Negroes in the county own more than
25,000 acres of land and more than 2,000 farms. They are a progressive
lot of colored people. They have a number of independent schools aside
from the public schools. They have excellent churches, and their homes
are being built on modern lines. This county has twelve miles of
cement road running from Rocky Mount to Nashville, the county seat.
The contour of the county is rolling and red clay. The important towns
are Nashville, Spring Hope, Middlesex, and let us say a part of Rocky
Mount. There is a great deal of the land in this county uncultivated
and developed. It waits only for the man who has the brain and the
energy. The county has no county farm demonstration agent nor colored
school supervisor. I do not know what can be more advantageous to
the success of the colored farmer than the addition of a colored
farm demonstration agent and a colored school supervisor. While the
preachers are ministering to the spiritual needs of our folks and the
teachers are directing their intellectual life, and the state and
county health offices are looking after the health of the masses, the
farm demonstration agents and the colored school supervisors are daily
giving inspiration and purpose to rural life everywhere. The state and
county are the direct beneficiaries of the work of these two agents.
Having five children go to school every day from one family where
formerly only three went means very much for the literacy of the state.
Teaching boys how to grow forty bushels of corn on the same acreage
where their fathers could grow only ten is adding very much to the
wealth of the state. The community which does not appreciate and
recognize this truth is impervious to eternal values. Every farmers’
conference tells how much increase there has been in corn, peas,
cotton, peanuts, oats, rye, tobacco, and other things under the
direction of our farm demonstration agents.
We pass through Franklin County into Wake. Every one knows that Raleigh
is in Wake County. As soon as you arrive in Wakefield or Zebulon, both
small country hamlets, you know that you must be about fifteen miles
from the capital city. Hard-surfaced roads present such a temptation
to touch the accelerator just a little, and little, and again a little
more, and again, if you do not happen to see any motorcycles lurking
about. The colored population of this county is less than 30,000, and
they own less than 6,000 farms. They own about 60,000 acres of land.
Their school population is about 10,000, with an enrollment of about
7,000, and an average daily attendance of about 4,000 children. We
ought to expect the school average to be higher, of course, being
adjacent to the seat of state authority. Wake County has had for a
number of years two colored agents, in the person of Miss Delany for
the schools, and Professor Roberts for the farmers. They have gone in
and out of the farm homes daily carrying inspiration and encouragement
and inspiring hope. The daily contact with these personalities has
been the leavening power in the county. We have seen for a number of
years the finest products that could be produced on exhibition in our
colored State Fair. In the city market in Raleigh every day in the year
one will see these same fine farm products. They will do justice to
any racial group. Here one will see what the agents are doing to help
the farmers to conserve and preserve their products. The homes of the
farmers show neatness and cleanliness. We have been greatly surprised
to see how far some of our farmers have gone in beautifying their homes
and premises. _This is as it should be._
The excellent public schools of Raleigh, the fine institutions
represented by St. Augustine School and Shaw University have given the
colored rural population a great inspiration. The well ordered homes of
some of their city cousins have also been an inspiration to the colored
rural population.
There are so many opportunities, educational and inspirational, about
the state capitol, that it is almost like living under the shadows
of a great university. Then the main thoroughfares are so fine that
those living in the most remote parts of the county ought to have no
difficulty or count it no hardship to go to the city for lectures,
recitals, conventions, conferences, and for general consultation with
those under state authority. These opportunities are the best sort of
unearned increment.
We pass from Wake County to Chatham County. There are no less than
8,000 colored people in Chatham County. They own about 2,000 farms and
homes, and about 30,000 acres of land. The two small towns, Moncure
and Haywood, have quite a settlement of colored people. At Haywood
they seem rather isolated and some of the homes had a progressive
appearance. The disadvantages under which we started, the social,
industrial, business and educational status, in which we find ourselves
should not be allowed to differentiate from other people who live in
the same community and in the same environment.
If other racial groups living in the same community have their homes
painted, flowers in their gardens and other ornaments that add to
home life and beauty, it is perfectly right that we should catch the
inspiration. If we cannot be leaders in these matters, we ought to
be good followers. We have the labor, and a gallon of paint and a
paint brush will work wonders in a few hours. If we cannot keep the
yard fence looking decent and in repair let us move it. We must take
personal pride in the community in which we live. It is the best sort
of civic pride. In this community we ought to prove our best selves.
Chatham County has disgraced itself recently with a lynching bee.
Crossing the river into Lee County we were very much impressed with
the sign, “You are welcome to Lee County.” This large sign was in a
most conspicuous place and we interpreted it to mean what it said, and
that we were included in the invitation. We stopped to ponder and to
contrast the difference. We have been in parts of our country where
the overhead signs read, “Nigers and dogs not wanted.” We have seen in
other parts where land was advertised for sale and the biggest asset in
the advertisement was the absence of Negroes from the community.
There are less than 4,000 colored people in Lee County. They own about
700 farms and about 8,000 acres of land. The area of the county is very
small, and the entire population less than 15,000.
I have been for several years on a local inter-racial committee. Since
the world war it has been necessary to have such a committee in the
South on inter-racial relations. I am also on the state inter-racial
committee. That means that I am always looking out for the small things
and the larger things, too, as we make our daily rounds, that count for
good will and peace between the two racial groups. At Sanford we saw
a large number of colored men at work as carpenters and bricklayers
on some of the finest buildings going up in the city. I was shown
others and advised that they were the work of colored carpenters, under
colored contractors. A former Brick School boy was foreman on one of
the jobs. These contractors and workmen were personal friends of mine,
and later I had the pleasure of seeing some of their own homes and
business. They were among the best in the community. Broadway, Cumnock,
and Jonesboro are progressive communities in which the colored people
are doing well. I was advised that only a few of the colored people had
migrated from this part of the state. It means that they are happy and
that they can buy homes in communities that are compatible. After all,
we must have compatibility in our homes and in our neighborhood, in our
community, in our relations with the outside world. I would not live a
week in a community that was not compatible. To receive a gibe and a
thrust every time one steps on the street, or into a corner grocery,
or on the public highway, by other racial groups is contemptible, and
especially so when one knows that there is absolutely no redress for
that sort of contempt. One wonders what the preachers are preaching or
what the schools are teaching. Patriotism, love of community, social
and personal progress are of slow growth in such communities where
there is so much incompatibility.
All the world has heard of Moore County. It is an area of 798 square
miles. The main line of the Seaboard railroad crosses it from north to
south. It is crossed and recrossed by Page’s railroad. Here is Southern
Pines, Pinehurst, Jackson Springs, Carthage, and scores of other
smaller towns. The names are common to the resorter and tourist. It has
a population of less than 6,000 Negroes, who own about 16,000 acres of
land. Excluding the villages and towns, twenty-five years ago I would
not have paid the taxes for all the rest of the land. Twenty-five
years ago I went all over the county, and one could scarcely get
anywhere for the sand and roads were practically unknown. Sand, sand,
sand—everywhere sand.
Moore County is now the veritable garden spot of the state. The local
intersecting railroads have changed hands. Fine public highways have
been built in every direction. The tourist and capitalist, making
their annual visits to this section, have discovered in that vast land
undiscovered possibilities of wealth. Thousands and thousands of acres
of this waste have been converted into peach orchards. Peach packing
stations have been built all along the track for the convenience of
the peach shippers. I was told that several trains of peaches were
shipped daily to the Northern market. Where the land was not already
planted I saw the Fordson tractors getting it ready for fall planting.
Most of this undeveloped land was what is called cut-over land. It
is absolutely barren except for a lot of shrubby pines, shrubby oaks
and some native tough grasses and wild composite flowers. Tupelle and
poplar may be found in the swamps and lowlands.
I wondered as I passed along to get a bit of information here and
there, if our colored people were learning to do by doing. I wondered
if they were getting the inspiration. Sixteen thousand acres of land
ought to be the nucleus of an industry. A hundred acres ought to make a
good peach farm. What an opportunity for the colored man who has brain
and industry and some little money and a great ambition. We have not
the faintest idea of the wonderful opportunities in the millions of
acres of the waste lands of our southern country. These lands are just
begging the capitalist to come and invest in the undeveloped resources
of its bosom. It is there, but it just needs the brain and some
little money. The brawn is there, too; it just needs the intelligent
direction. Compatible conditions will keep it there.
The land in Moore County will never again sell for one dollar an acre
while peaches are selling for three dollars a bushel at the tree. Most
of the trees bear from two to five bushels of peaches. They are planted
about fifteen feet apart. It takes about 150 trees to the acre. Any
one can figure the income at that rate. These peaches ought to begin
bearing in three years. There is nothing so fabulous as the income per
acre from such an investment. There is nothing so sure. Some of the
rows as we viewed them seemed endless. Greensboro, sixty miles away,
was sending trucks to the peach area daily for loads of peaches for the
local market, in Greensboro. A little while back one of these peach
orchards sold for $85,000.
The business of supervision has become so important that many of the
growers combine and employ an expert from the State Department of
Agriculture. They can pay more than the state can pay for such expert
supervision. The work is as yet in its infancy. We are advising our
Negro boys to go to our best agricultural schools and specialize in
this department of fruit cultivation so that they can manage such
enterprises as these large fruit farms. They do not seem to get the
vision. As long as our folks are buying farms, and they are increasing
their holdings every year, there are vast opportunities for their
services as horticulturists. Ten Negro farmers in Moore County, North
Carolina, ought to be able to get together and make peach-growing worth
while to the group. Their traditions and the local environment have
taken away their inspiration. They also lack knowledge. They have not
been schooled in initiative of this sort. Coöperation with most of us
has been a doubtful experiment. We must learn and grow more before we
can take hold of the larger industries that require large coöperation.
Experience and knowledge are vital to the success of any enterprise.
The great enterprises of the North have been growing coöperatively
since the country was discovered. The South has been giving its time
to matters of social adjustments. The adjustment of its racial groups
has been its nightmare by day as well as by night. Hatreds, jealousies,
prejudices, have entered too much into our daily contact and relations
to allow us to grow nationally. The conditions of all progress are in
education, industry, compatibility.
I read somewhere that the conscious mind may not get a true perspective
and may error. Still it is conscious. When I read in the papers every
day and note all the deviltries perpetrated here and there all over
the South, I wonder that we have all gotten along as well as we have,
and especially do I wonder how the Negro has made such progress. Then
I hear that the subconscious mind never errors. The conscious mind
would have me riled and leaving the country, boot and baggage, when I
read what is happening somewhere else outside of North Carolina. The
subconscious mind comes in and says to me, when I am quiet and alone
and perhaps when I am half asleep, “No, do not get discouraged.” The
South is the garden spot of the world. It has the prettiest moons, the
brightest days, its florescence on a thousand hills and in as many
vales scatters its fragrance and beauty three hundred and sixty-five
days in the year. Its cataracts, rills, and springs sparkle with
diamonds of beauty and health. The woods and swamps are filled with
every sort of game, her rivers and lakes abound with every known fish
for the sportsmen, her climate is the most equitable in the world,
the rainfall the most evenly distributed, the storms not so awfully
destructive, the exotic population the least of that of any other
similar area, with an adapted vegetation from the highest altitudes to
the equator. The contour of the surface is high or low as one likes
it. Smooth or rough. The Blue Ridge Mountains afford a retreat from
the Northern winters as well as a retreat from the Southern sun. Her
altitude, pine forest and splendid waters are an asset that no other
country in the world can equal. In the next few years more than fifty
millions of dollars will be spent in North Carolina alone for public
roads. Steam roads and electric cars will soon intersect every nook
and corner of the state. The most inaccessible parts of the state and
the South will become the public highways. Automobiles and trucks will
bring the most remote farms to the city markets daily. The telephone
and radio are already available in our country homes.