THE FARMER AND THE LAND
The end of Reconstruction found the tenant system and the "crop lien"
firmly fastened upon the South. The plantation system had broken down
since the owner no longer had slaves to work his land, capital to pay
wages, or credit on which to borrow the necessary funds. Many of the
great plantations had already been broken up and sold, while others,
divided into tracts of convenient size, had been rented to white or
negro tenants. What had been one plantation became a dozen farms, a
score, or even more. Men who owned smaller tracts found it difficult to
hire or to keep labor, and many retained only the land which they or
their sons could work and rented the remainder of their farms. This
system is still characteristic of Southern agriculture.
Few of the landless whites and practically none of the negroes had
sufficient money reserve to maintain themselves for a year and hence no
capital to apply to the land on which they were tenants. Yet the land was
there ready to produce, the labor was there, more or less willing to work
if it could but live while the crop was growing. The country merchant had
already assumed the office of banker to the tenant farmer, and this
position he still holds in spite of all efforts to dislodge him. His
customers include not only tenants but some landowners, white or black.
They buy from him, during the months before the crop is gathered, the food,
clothing, and other supplies necessary for existence, and as many simple
luxuries as he will permit. When the crops are gathered, he buys them, or
at least the share of them belonging to the tenant, subtracts the store
accounts, and turns over the surplus, if any, to the farmers.
Unlike other bankers, the merchant charges no interest upon the capital
he advances, but he is paid nevertheless. For every pound of bacon,
meal, and flour, for every gallon of molasses, for every yard of cloth,
for every plug of tobacco or tin of snuff which the customer consumes
during the spring and summer, an advanced price is charged to him on the
merchant's books. With thousands of these merchants selling to hundreds
of thousands of farmers over a wide area, it is of course impossible to
state the average difference between credit and cash prices.
Investigations made in different sections show a wide variation
depending upon custom, competition, the reliability and industry of the
customer, the amount of advances, and the length of credit. Since a large
part of the advances are made during the six, or even four months before
the crops are gathered, the difference between cash and credit prices
amounts often to an interest charge of forty to one hundred per cent or
even more a year. These advanced credit prices, and consequently the high
interest rates, may be paid not only upon food, clothing, and other
personal goods, but also, occasionally, upon tools, farming implements,
fertilizers, and work animals.
The merchant is supposed to be protected against loss by the institution
of the crop lien and the chattel mortgage. By one or the other of these
the farmer is enabled to mortgage his growing, or even his unplanted
crops, his farming implements, his cattle, and horses, if he owns them.
If he is a landowner, the land may be included in a mortgage as
additional security. The crop is conveyed to the mortgagee as in an
ordinary land mortgage, and the tenant cannot hold back his crop for a
better price, or seek a better market for any part of it, until all his
obligations have been settled. Disposing of mortgaged property is a
serious offense and no one not desirous of abetting fraud will buy
property which he has reason to suspect has been mortgaged. As a result
of this system in some sections, years ago, nine-tenths of the farmers
were in debt. Undoubtedly the prices credited for the crops have been
less than might have been obtained in a market absolutely free. If the
crops a farmer raises bring less than the advances, the balance is
carried over to the next year and no other merchant will give credit to
a man whose accounts with his former creditor are not clear. In the past
the signing of one of these legal instruments has often reduced the
farmer to a state of peonage.
Naturally the merchant who has begun to extend credit, sometimes before
the seed is in the ground, has a voice in deciding what crops shall be
planted. The favorite crops in the past have been tobacco and cotton,
particularly the latter. Both contain comparatively large value in small
bulk; both can be stored conveniently, with little danger of
deterioration; neither is liable to a total failure; a ready market for
both is always available; and neither tempts the thief until it is ripe.
Only winter wheat, sown in the fall and reaped in early summer, is grown
in the South, and the crop is somewhat uncertain. A tenant who has secured
advances on a crop of wheat during the fall and winter may easily move to
an adjoining county or State in the spring and plant cotton there. Half a
crop of corn may easily be stolen, eaten by animals, or consumed by the
tenant while still green. A further reason for not encouraging the
production of corn and wheat is the profit the merchant makes by the sale
of imported flour, meal, and bacon. Cotton is therefore almost the only
product of sections admirably suited to the growing of corn or to the
raising of hogs. The country merchant has helped to keep the South poor.
Yet in spite of the apparently exorbitant percentage of profit, few
country merchants become rich. In a year of drouth, or of flood, many of
their debtors may not be able to pay their accounts, even though their
intentions are of the best. Others may prove shiftless and neglect their
fields. Still others may be deliberately dishonest and, after getting as
large advances as possible, abandon their crops leaving both the
landowner and the merchant in the lurch. These creditors must then
either attempt to harvest the crop by hired labor, with the hope of
reducing their loss, or else charge the whole to profit and loss. The
illness or death of the debtor may also prevent the proper cultivation of
the crop he has planted. For these different reasons every country
merchant is likely to accumulate many bad debts which may finally throw
him into bankruptcy. Those who succeed are exceptionally shrewd or very
fortunate.
The relation of the tenant to his landlord varies in different parts of
the South. Many different plans of landholding have been tried since
1865, and traces of all of them may be found throughout the length and
breadth of the South. One was a modified serfdom, in which the tenant
worked for the landlord four or five days in every week for a small
wage. In addition he had a house, firewood, and several acres of land
which he might cultivate on his own account. According to another plan,
the landlord promised to pay a fixed sum of money to the laborer when
the crop was gathered. Both plans had their origin primarily in the
landlord's poverty, but were reenforced by the tenant's unreliability.
These plans, as well as combinations of these with some others to be
mentioned, have now practically died out. There remain the following
alternatives: land may be rented for a fixed sum of money per acre, to be
paid when the crops are sold, or for a fixed quantity of produce, so many
bushels of corn or so many pounds of cotton being paid for every acre; or,
more commonly, land may be rented on some form of share tenancy by which
the risk as well as the profit is shared by both tenant and landowner.
Share tenancy assumes various forms. In some sections a rough
understanding grew up that, in the division of a crop, one-third was to
be allotted to the land, one-third to live stock, seed, and tools, and
one-third to labor. If the tenant brought nothing but his bare hands, he
received only the share supposed to be due to labor; if he owned working
animals and implements, he received in addition the share supposed to be
due to them. This arrangement, modified in individual cases, still
persists, especially where the tenants are white. As various forms of
industrial enterprise have continued to draw labor from the farms, the
share assigned to labor by this form of tenancy has increased until, in
perhaps the greater part of the South and certainly in the
cotton-growing sections, it is usually one-half.
The ordinary arrangement of share tenancy under which the negro in the
cotton belt now works provides that the landowner shall furnish a cabin in
which the family may live and an acre or two for a garden. In addition,
working stock, implements, and seed are supplied by the owner of the land.
Both tenant and owner share the cost of fertilizers if any are used, and
divide equally the expenses of preparing the crop for market and the
proceeds of the sale. This arrangement means, of course, that the
capitalist takes the laborer into a real partnership. Both embark in a
venture the deferred results of which are dependent chiefly upon the
industry and good faith of the laborer. By a seeming paradox it is only the
laborer's unreliability which gives him such an opportunity, for if he were
more dependable, the landowner would prefer in most cases to pay wages and
take the whole of the crop. Because the average negro laborer cannot be
depended upon to be faithful, he is given a greater opportunity,
contrary to all ordinary moral maxims.
When the share tenant lives on the land he may be a part of two
different systems. There are some large plantations over which the
owners or managers exercise close supervision. The horses or, more
generally, the mules are housed in large common stables or sheds and are
properly looked after. Some attempt is made to see that tools and
implements are kept in order. If the tenant falls behind in his work and
allows his crop to be overrun with grass or is unable to pick the cotton
as it opens, the owner hires help, if possible, and charges the cost
against the tenant. In other words, the owner attempts to apply to
agriculture some of the principles of industrial organization. The success
of such attempts varies. The negro tenant generally resents close
supervision; but on the other hand he enjoys the community life of a large
plantation. In the end, in the majority of cases the personal equation
determines whether the negro stays or moves.
At the other extreme is the landowner who turns over his land to the
negro and hopes for some return. If the tenant is industrious and
ambitious, the landowner gets something and is relieved of the trouble
of supervision. Often, however, he finds at the end of the year that the
mules have deteriorated from being worked through the day and driven or
ridden over the country at night; the tools and implements are broken or
damaged; and the fences have been used for firewood, though an abundant
supply could have been obtained by a few hours' labor. Very often the
landlord's share of the small crop will not really compensate him for the
depreciated value of his property, for land rented without supervision is
likely to decrease in fertility and to bring in meager returns.
A more successful arrangement between the two extremes is often seen in
sections where the population is largely white and land is held in
smaller tracts. Here a white farmer who owns more land than he or his
sons can cultivate marks off a tract for a tenant, white or black, who
may be said to work with his landlord. Both he and others of his family
may work an occasional day for the landlord, receiving pay either in
kind or in cash. Relations between such families often become close, and
the tenant may remain on the property for years. In some sections there
are numerous examples of what might be called permanent tenants.
Sometimes such a tenant ultimately purchases the land upon which he has
worked or other land in the neighborhood.
The plantation owner may be a merchant-landlord also and may furnish
supplies to his tenants. He keeps only staple articles, but he may give
an order on a neighboring store for those not in stock or may even
furnish small sums of money on occasion. The tenants are not allowed to
buy as much as they choose either in the plantation store or in the local
store at the crossroads. At the beginning of the year the landlord or the
merchant generally allows a credit ranging from fifty to two hundred
dollars but rarely higher and attempts to make the tenant distribute the
purchases over the whole period during which the crop is growing. If
permitted, many, perhaps a large majority of the tenants, might use up
their credit months before the crop was gathered. In such cases the
merchant or landlord, or both, must make further advances to save what they
have already invested or else must see the tenant abandon is crops and
move.
These relations between landlord and tenant show much diversity, but
certain conditions prevail everywhere. Few tenants can sustain
themselves until the crop is gathered, and a very large percentage of
them must eat and wear their crops before they are gathered--a
circumstance which will create no surprise unless the reader makes the
common error of thinking of them as capitalists. Though the landlord in
effect takes his tenants into partnership, they are really only
laborers, and few laborers anywhere are six or eight months ahead of
destitution. How many city laborers, even those with skilled trades,
could exist without credit if their wages were paid only once a year?
How many of them would have prudence or foresight enough to conserve their
wages when finally paid and make them last until the next annual payment?
The fault for which the tenant is to be blamed is that he does not take
advantage of two courses of action open to him: first, to raise a
considerable part of the food he consumes; and second, to struggle
persistently to become independent of the merchant. Thousands of tenants
have achieved their economic freedom, and all could if they would only make
an intelligent and continued effort to do so.
Nowhere else in the United States has the negro the same opportunity to
become self-sustaining, but his improvidence keeps him poor. Too often
he allows what little garden he has to be choked with weeds through his
shiftlessness. One of the shrewdest observers and fairest critics of the
negro, Alfred Holt Stone, says of the Mississippi negro: "In a
plantation experience of more than twelve years, during which I have
been a close observer of the economic life of the plantation negro, I
have not known one to anticipate the future by investing the earnings of
one year in supplies for the next....The idea seems to be that the
money from a crop already gathered is theirs, to be spent as fancy
suggests, while the crop to be made must take care of itself, or be taken
care of by the 'white-folks.'"[1] This statement is not so true of the
negroes of the Upper South, many of whom are more intelligent, and have
developed foresight and self-reliance.
[Footnote 1: Stone. _Studies in the American Race Problem_, p. 188]
The theory that there is an organized conspiracy over the whole South to
keep the negro in a state of peonage is frequently advanced by ignorant
or disingenuous apologists for the negro, but this belief cannot be
defended. The merchants usually prefer to sell for cash, and more and
more of them are reluctant to sell on credit. In some cotton towns no
merchant will sell on credit, and the landlord is obliged to furnish
supplies to those who cannot pay. The landowners generally would much
prefer a group of prosperous permanent tenants who could be depended
upon to give some thought to the crop of the future as well as to that
of the present. In the South as a whole the negro finds little
difficulty in buying land, if he can make a moderate first payment. It
is true that some are cheated by the merchant or the landlord. Prices
charged for supplies are too high, and the prices credited for crops are
too low, but the debtors are hardly swindled to a greater extent than
the ignorant and illiterate elsewhere.
The condition of the white tenant is sometimes little better than that
of the negro. He usually farms a larger tract, 83.8 acres on the average
(in 1910), as against 39.6 acres for the negro, and he is on the whole
more prosperous; but there are many who live from hand to mouth, move
frequently, habitually get into debt to the merchant or the landlord,
and have little or no surplus at settling time. In the South in 1910
there were 866,000 white tenant farmers who cultivated 20.5 per cent of
all the land, and since that time white tenancy has been increasing. The
increase of land ownership is greater among the negroes than among the
whites, who are in many cases illiterates. This illiteracy is one cause
of their poverty, but not the only cause: a part of it is moral,
involving a lack of steadfast purpose, and a part is physical. The
researches conducted by the United States Government, the state boards
of health, and the Rockefeller Foundation show clearly that much of the
indolence charged to the less prosperous Southern rural whites is due to
the effect of the hookworm, a tiny intestinal parasite common in most
tropical and subtropical regions and probably brought from Africa or the
West Indies by the negro. The Rockefeller Foundation is now spending nearly
$300,000 a year in financing, wholly or in part, attempts to eradicate the
disease in eight Southern States and in fifteen foreign countries.
The parasite enters the body from polluted soil, usually through the
feet, as a large part of the rural population goes barefoot in the
summer; it makes its way to the intestinal canal, where it fixes itself,
grows, and lays eggs which are voided and hatch in the soil. Since most
country districts are without sanitary closets, reinfection may occur
again and again, until an individual harbors a host of these tiny
bloodsuckers, which interfere with his digestion and sap his vitality.
It is now believed that the morbid appetites of the "clay eaters" are
due to this infection. The fact that the negro who introduced the curse
is less susceptible to the infection and is less affected by it than the
white man is one of life's ironies.
There is a brighter side to this picture, however. Of all the cultivated
land in the South 65 per cent is worked by owners (white 60.6 per cent;
colored 4.4 per cent) and this land is on the whole much better tilled
than that let to tenants. It is true that some of the landowners are
chronically in debt, burdened with mortgages and with advances for
supplies. Some of them probably produce less to the acre than tenants
working under close supervision, but the percentage of farms mortgaged is
less in the South than in any other part of the country except the
Mountain Division, and unofficial testimony indicates that few farms are
lost through foreclosure.
For years the agricultural colleges and the experiment stations offered
good advice to the Southern farmer, but they reached only a small
proportion. Their bulletins had a small circulation and were so full of
technical expressions as to be almost unintelligible to the average
farmer. Recently the writers have attempted to make themselves more
easily understood, and the usefulness of their publications has
consequently increased. The bulletins of the Department of Agriculture
are read in increasing numbers, and several agricultural papers have a
wide circulation. The "farmer's institutes" where experts in various
lines speak on their specialties are well attended, and the experimental
farms to which few visitors came at first are now popular.
Two other agencies are doing much for agricultural betterment. One is
the county demonstrator, and the other boys' and girls' clubs. Both are due
to the foresight and wisdom of the late Dr. Seaman A. Knapp, of the United
States Department of Agriculture. As early as 1903 Dr. Knapp had been
showing by practical demonstration how the farmers of Texas might
circumvent the boll weevil, which was threatening to make an end of
cotton-growing in that State. He was able to increase the yield of cotton
on a pest-ridden farm. The idea of the boys' corn club was not new when
Dr. Knapp took it up in 1908 and made it a national institution. The girls'
canning club was soon added to the list, and then came the pig club for
boys and the poultry club for girls.
The General Education Board, which, with its large resources, had been
seeking the best way to aid education in the South, was forced to the
conclusion that any educational development must be preceded by economic
improvement. The farm production of the South was less than that of
other sections, and until this production could be increased, taxation,
no matter how heavy, could not provide sufficient money for really
efficient schools. After a study of the whole field of agricultural
education, the ideas of Dr. Knapp were adopted as the basis of the work
and, by arrangement with the Department of Agriculture, Dr. Knapp himself
was placed in charge. The appropriations to the Department of Agriculture
had been made for the extermination or circumvention of the boll weevil
and could not be used for purely educational work in States where the
weevil had not appeared. A division of territory was now made: the
Department financed demonstration work in those States affected by the
pest and the General Education Board bore the expense in the other States.
Entire supervision of the work was in the hands of the Department of
Agriculture, which made all appointments and disbursed all funds. The Board
furnished funds but assumed no authority. The history issued by the
General Education Board says: "Dr. Knapp endeavored to teach his hearers
not only how to raise cotton and corn, but how to conduct farming as a
business--how to ascertain the cost of a crop, how to find out whether they
were making or losing money. As rapidly as possible the scope was broadened
for the purpose of making the farmer more and more independent. He was
stimulated to raise stock, to produce feed and forage for his stock, and
to interest himself in truck gardening, hog-raising, etc."
The method used was to appoint county, district and state demonstration
agents who would induce different farmers to cultivate a limited area
according to specific directions. As these agents were appointed by the
Department of Agriculture, the farmer was flattered by being singled out by
the Government. In most cases the results of the experiments were far
superior to those which the farmer had obtained merely by following
tradition, and he usually applied the successful methods to his whole farm.
Some of his neighbors, who visited the demonstration plot to scoff at the
idea that any one in Washington could teach a farmer how to grow cotton or
corn, were wise enough to recognize the improvement and to follow the
directions. Every successful demonstration farm was thus a center of
influence, and the work was continued after Dr. Knapp's death under the
charge of his son, Bradford Knapp.
The idea of the boys' corn club was vitalized in 1908 by Dr. Knapp, who
planned to establish a corn club in every neighborhood, with county and
state organizations. Each boy was to cultivate a measured acre of land
in corn, according to directions and keep a strict account of the cost.
The work of his father, or of a hired man, in ploughing the land must be
charged against the plot at the market rate. Manure, or fertilizer, and
seed were likewise to be charged, but the main work of cultivation was to
be done by the boy himself. The crop was to be measured by two
disinterested witnesses who should certify to the result. Local pride was
depended upon to furnish prizes for the county organization, but the most
successful boys in every State were to be taken on a trip to Washington,
there to shake hands with the Secretary of Agriculture and the President.
This appeal to the imagination of youth was a master touch.
Thousands of boys were interested and achieved results which were truly
startling. In every State the average yield from the boys' acres was
larger than the state average, in some cases almost five times as great.
One South Carolina boy produced on his acre in 1910 over 228 bushels,
and in 1913 an Alabama boy reached high-water mark with nearly 233
bushels. Hundreds of boys produced over 100 bushels to the acre, and the
average of the boys in South Carolina was nearly 69 bushels, compared
with an average of less than 20 for the adult farmers. The pig clubs
which followed have likewise been successful and have stimulated an
interest in good stock and proper methods of caring for it. Many country
banks have financed these operations by buying hogs by the carload and
selling to the club members on easy terms.
Girls' canning clubs were organized by Dr. Knapp in 1910. Girls were
encouraged to plant a tenth of an acre in tomatoes. Trained
demonstrators then traveled from place to place and showed them how to
use portable canning outfits. The girls met, first at one house and then
at another, to preserve their tomatoes, and soon they began to preserve
many other vegetables and fruits. Two girls in Tennessee are said to
have preserved 126 different varieties of food. Some of these clubs have
gained more than a local reputation for their products and have been
able to sell their whole output to hotels or to institutions. Though the
monetary gain has been worth something, the addition to the limited
dietary of the homes has been worth more, and the social influence of
these clubs has been considerable. The small farmer in the South is not
a social being, and anything which makes for cooperation is valuable.
The poultry clubs which were an extension of the canning club idea have
been successful. The club idea, indeed, has been extended beyond the
limits of the South. Congress, recognizing its value, has taken over and
extended the work and has supported it liberally. Today market-garden
clubs for the manufacturing cities, potato clubs, mother-and-daughter
clubs, and perhaps others have grown out of the vision of Dr. Knapp.
Though these activities have had a great effect in improving the South,
that section has not yet been transformed into an Eden. In spite of farm
demonstrations, experiment stations, and boys' and girls' clubs, the
stubborn inertia of a rural population fixed on the soil has only been
shocked, not routed. Much land is barely scratched instead of being
ploughed deep; millions of acres bear no cover crops but lose their
fertility through the leaching of valuable constituents during the
winter. Fertilizer is bought at exorbitant prices, while the richness of
the barnyard goes to waste, and legumes are neglected; land is allowed
to wash into gullies which soon become ravines. Farms which would
produce excellent corn and hay are supplied with these products from the
Middle West; millions of pounds of Western pork are consumed in regions
where hogs can be easily and cheaply raised; butter from Illinois or
Wisconsin is brought to sections admirably adapted to dairying; and
apples from Oregon and honey from Ohio are sold in the towns. In several
typical counties an average of $4,000,000 was sent abroad for products
which could easily have been raised at home. In Texas some of the bankers
have been refusing credit to supply merchants who do not encourage the
production of food crops as well as cotton.[1]
[Footnote 1: An illuminating series of studies of rural life is being
issued by the Bureau of Extension of the University of North Carolina.]
Throughout the South there are thousands of homes into which no
newspaper comes, certainly no agricultural paper, and in which there are
few books, except perhaps school books. The cooking is sometimes done
with a few simple utensils over the open fire. Water must be brought
from a spring at the foot of the hill, at an expenditure of strength and
endurance. The cramped house has no conveniences to lighten labor or to
awaken pride. The overworked wife and mother has no social life, except
perhaps attendance at the services at the country church to which the
family rides in a springless wagon. Such families see their neighbors
prosper without attempting to discover the secret for themselves. Blank
fatalism possesses them. They do not realize that they could prosper.
New methods of cultivation, they think, are not for them since they have
no capital to purchase machinery.
On the other hand, one sees more Ford cars than teams at many country
churches, and many larger automobiles as well. Some Southern States are
spending millions for better roads, and the farmer or his son or
daughter can easily run into town in the afternoon carrying a little
produce which more than pays for any purchases. Tractors are seen at
work here and there, and agricultural machinery is under the sheds. Many
houses have private water systems and a few farmers have harnessed the
brooks for electric lights. The gas engine which pumps the water runs
the corn sheller or the wood saw. The rural telephone spreads like a web
over the countryside. Into these houses the carrier brings the daily or
semi-weekly paper from the neighboring town, agricultural journals, and
some magazines of national circulation; a piano stands in the parlor;
and perhaps a college pennant or two hang somewhere, for many farm boys
and girls go to college. In spite of the short terms of the public
schools, many manage to get some sort of preparation for college, and in
the South more college students come from farm homes than from town or
city. This encouraging picture is true, no less than the other, and the
number of such progressive farm homes is fortunately growing larger.
A greater range of products is being cultivated throughout the South,
though more cotton and tobacco are being produced than ever before. The
output of corn, wheat, hay, and pork has increased in recent years, though
the section is not yet self-sufficient. The growing of early vegetables and
fruits for Northern markets is a flourishing industry in some sections
where land supposedly almost worthless has been found to be admirably
adapted for this purpose. An increasing acreage in various legumes not
only furnishes forage but enriches the soil. Silos are to be seen here and
there, and there are some excellent herds of dairy cattle, though the
scarcity of reliable labor makes this form of farming hazardous. The cattle
tick is being conquered, and more beef is being produced. Thoroughbred
hogs and poultry are common.
With the great rise in the price of the farmer's products since 1910,
the man who farms with knowledge and method is growing prosperous.
Farmers are taking advantage of the Federal Farm Loan Act and are paying
off many mortgages. The necessity of asking for credit is diminishing,
and men have contracted to buy land and have paid for it from the first
crop. While the things the farmer must buy have risen in price, his
products have risen even higher in value; and in those sections of the
South suited to mixed farming there need be comparatively little outgo.
One is tempted to hope that the lane has turned for the Southern farmer.
Partly owing to his ignorance and inertia, partly to circumstances
difficult to overcome, his lot after 1870 was not easy, and from 1870 to
1910 is a full generation. An individual who grew to manhood on a
Southern farm during that period may be excused for a gloomy outlook
upon the world. He finds it difficult to believe that prosperity has
arrived, or that it will last. The number who have been convinced of the
brighter outlook, however, is increasing.