ling behind. In the
twenty years from 1880 to 1900 the whites in eighteen Southern states
without the aid of foreign immigration increased 57 per cent and the
negroes only 33 per cent.[22] In only six Southern states, West
Virginia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, have
the negroes, during the past ten years, increased more rapidly than the
whites, and in only three of these states, Alabama, Mississippi, and
Arkansas, was the relative increase significant. In but two states,
South Carolina and Mississippi, does the negro element predominate, and
in another state, Louisiana, a majority were negroes in 1890, but a
majority were whites in 1900. "At the beginning of the nineteenth
century the Southern negroes were increasing much faster than the
Southern whites. At the end of it they were increasing only about
three-fifths as fast."[23]

This redistribution of negroes is an interesting and significant fact
regarding the race and has a bearing on its future. Two movements are
taking place, first to the fertile bottom lands of the Southern states,
second to the cities, both North and South. Mr. Carl Kelsey has shown
this movement to the lowlands in an interesting way.[24] He has prepared
a geological map of Alabama, which with Mississippi has received the
largest accession of negroes, and has shown the density of negro
population according to the character of the soil. In this map it
appears that the prairie and valley regions contain a proportion of 50
per cent to 90 per cent negroes, while the sand hill and pine levels
contain only 10 per cent to 50 per cent, and the piedmont or foothill
region less than 10 per cent. A similar segregation is found in other
Southern states, especially the alluvial districts of Mississippi and
Arkansas. In these fertile sections toward which the negroes gravitate,
the crops are enormous, and Mr. Kelsey points out a curious
misconception in the census summary, wherein the inference is drawn that
negroes are better farmers than whites because they raise larger crops.
"No wonder the negroes' crops are larger," when the whites farm the hill
country and the negroes till the delta, which "will raise twice as much
cotton per acre as the hills." Furthermore the negro, whether tenant or
owner, is under the close supervision of a white landlord or creditor,
who in self-protection keeps control of him, whereas the white farmer is
left to succeed or fail without expert guidance.