The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.5, page 665, Nov. 1900, U. of Illinois Press

The page presentation framework of the Booker T. Washington papers is designed to provide researchers worldwide with searchable access to the thousands of pages comprising the fourteen volumes, most of which are out of print. Adapted from the National Academy Press's Open Book framework, this framework allows searching down to the page level, provides sorting of search results chronologically, enables easy navigation across multiple volumes, and allows page-by-page local printing (via PDF) of every page.

[ Top of Page ]

[ Home ]

[ Contact Us ]

[ Help ]

OCRed data provided for searching only.
N OVE M BER · 1 9 OO is unknown here. Any man who is willing to work for it can buy his place, on easy terms. Despite these advantages there is room for a great deal of improvement. Farming, if it can be dignified by that name, is done in a very primitive way. This year crops planted in low lands were ''Drowned out,'' because the lands were not properly drained, while those on high ground suffered during the dry weather, which followed the wet, because not properly tended. Some of the white farmers make as much as forty bushels of corn to the acre; and I believe the land capable of much more, yet the average colored farmer does not make more than one fourth of that amount. Of course improvement in matters of farming would only be means to an end. The prosperous man with a comparatively large income would be anxious to improve his home and mode of living. Very few of the colored farmers can either react or write, or have been farther from home than Savannah or Charleston. When one is fortunate with his crop and gets some cash on hand, instead of building barns, fencing in his land or buying more acres, he lays out his earnings on a buggy, or something else equally unnecessary. Though we have not the tenant system as in parts of the South the credit system is a curse to both farmer and merchant. The merchant sells ploughs etc. in the Spring, to be paid for in the fall, the farmer giving chattel mortgages as security. Groceries and other things which he needs, or thinks he needs, are bought in this way. The merchant is obliged to charge more than if selling for cash. If this crop is poor the merchant suffers, realizing this he tries to insure himself against loss by increasing the price of the goods. The farmer of course is sure to lose by such a transaction. Yet I venture to say that if they only raised their own food stuffs, and knew how to manage, a great deal of this credit business could be done away with. I assure you the merchant would be as glad of it as the farmer. The climate and soil are particularly well adapted to market gardening. Several crops can be raised on the same land each year. Very little of this is done by the colored farmers. Certainly no young man working for the betterment of his people on Port Royal Isld would be hampered by the opposition of the whites. On the contrary when they became convinced that he was 665