Part 9 (1/2)

7. Keep a good supply of poultry. Set your hens. Keep your chickens until they will bring a good price.

8. Go to town on Thursday instead of Sat.u.r.day. Buy no more than you need. Stay in town no longer than necessary.

9. Starve rather than sell your crops before you raise them. Let your mind be fixed on that the first day of January, and stick to that every day in the year.

10. Buy land and build you a home.

The various states are beginning to establish inst.i.tutions in which agriculture and industrial training may be given. Among these may be mentioned that of Alabama at Normal, and of Mississippi at Westside.

Alabama has also established an experiment station in connection with the Tuskegee Inst.i.tute.

In Texas there is an interesting movement among the Negro farmers known as the ”Farmers' Improvement Society.” The objects are:

1. Abolition of the credit system.

2. Stimulate improvements in farming.

3. Co-operative buying.

4. Sickness and life insurance.

5. Encouragement of purchase of land and home.

The a.s.sociation holds a fair each year which is largely attended.

According to the Galveston _News_ of October 12, 1902, the society has about 3,000 members, who own some 50,000 acres of land, more than 8,000 cattle and 7,000 horses and mules. This organization, founded and maintained entirely by Negroes, promises much in many ways. In October, 1902, a fair was held in connection with the school at Calhoun, Ala., with 83 exhibitors and 416 entries, including 48 from the school and a very creditable showing of farm products and live stock.

Besides these general lines which seem to be of promise it is in place to mention a couple of attempts to get the Negroes to purchase land.

There have been not a few persons who have sold land to them on the installment plan with the expectation that later payments would be forfeited and the land revert. There are some enterprises which are above suspicion. I am not referring now to private persons or railroad companies who have sold large tracts to the Negroes, but to organizations whose objects are to aid the blacks in becoming landholders. The Land Company at Calhoun. Ala., started in 1896, buying 1,040 acres of land, which was accurately surveyed and divided into plots of fifty acres, so arranged that each farm should include different sorts of land. This was sold to the Negroes at cost price, $8 per acre, the purchasers to pay 8 per cent on deferred payments. The sums paid by the purchasers each year have been as follows:

1896--$ 741.03. Found later to be borrowed money in the main.

1897--$1,485.15. Largely borrowed money.

1898--$ 367.34. Men paying back borrowed money. Advances large.

1899--$ 374.77.

1900--$1,649.25. Money not borrowed. Advances small.

1901--$ 871.49. Bad year. Poor crops. Money not borrowed.

1902--$2,280.42. Advances very small. Outlook encouraging.

There have been some failures on part of tenants, and it has been necessary to gradually select the better men and allow the others to drop out. The company has paid all expenses and interest on its capital.

A second plantation has been purchased and is being sold. There is a manager who is a trained farmer, and by means of the farmers'

a.s.sociation already mentioned much pressure is brought to bear on the Negroes to improve their condition. The results are encouraging. In Macon County the Southern Land Company has purchased several thousand acres which it is selling in much the same way, but it is too early to speak of results. Even at Calhoun but few of the men have yet gotten deeds for their land.

A word regarding the methods of the Southern Land Company will be of interest. The land was carefully surveyed in forty-acre plots. These are sold at $8 per acre, the payments covering a period of seven years. The interest is figured in advance, and to each plot is charged a yearly fee of $5 for management. In this total is also included the cost of house and well (a three-roomed cabin is furnished for about $100, a well for $10). This sum is then divided into seven equal parts so that the purchaser knows in advance just what he must pay each year. The object of the company is to encourage home owners.h.i.+p. Until the place is paid for control of the planting, etc., remains with the manager of the company. Advances are in cash (except fertilizers), as no store is conducted by the company and interest is charged at 8 per cent for the money advanced and for the time said money is used.