cies of plant which is used in
adulterating cigarettes and cigars.

This little account indicates that, so far as the farmers are concerned,
there are few evidences of any decided progress save in the district
which has been under the influence of one school. The ease of getting a
livelihood acts as a deterrent to ambition. Yet the old families say
that they have the "best niggers of the South" and certain it is that
race troubles are unknown.

CENTRAL DISTRICT.

=THE OLD CABIN.=

In the central district life is a little more strenuous than on the sea
coast. The cabins are about the same. The average tenant has a "one mule
farm," some thirty or thirty-five acres. Occasionally the tenant has
more land, but only about this amount is cultivated and no rent is paid
for the balance. The area of the land is usually estimated and only
rarely is it surveyed. This land ranges in value from $5.00 to $15.00
per acre on the average. The customary rental for a "one mule farm" is
about two bales of cotton, whose value in recent years would be in the
neighborhood of $75.00, thus making the rental about $3.00 per acre. On
this farm from four to six bales of cotton are raised. The soil has been
injured by improper tillage and requires an expenditure of $1.75 to
$2.00 per acre for fertilizers if the best results are to be obtained.
As yet the Negroes do not fully appreciate this. The farmer secures
advances based on 1 peck of meal and 3 pounds of "side meat," fat salt
pork, per week for each working hand. About six dollars a month is the
limit for advances and as these are continued for only seven months or
so the average advance received is probably not far from $50.00 per
year. An advance of $10.00 per month is allowed for a two horse farm.
The advancer obligates himself to furnish only necessities and any
incidentals must be supplied from sale of poultry, berries and the like.
Clothing may often be reckoned as an incidental. The luxuries are bought
with cash or on the installment plan and are seldom indicated by the
books of the merchant. The cost of the average weekly advances for a
family in 1902 was:

10 pounds meat (salt port sides) @ 13-1/2c $1.35
1 bushel corn meal .90
1 plug tobacco (reckoned a necessity) .10
------
$2.35

=THE NEW HOUSE.=

Conditions throughout this district