exceptions, few in number, who say as did a lumberman in Alabama last
summer: "I never have any trouble with the Negro. Have worked them for
twenty years. Why, I haven't had to kill one yet, though I did shoot one
once, but I used fine shot and it didn't hurt him much." We have
attempted to have the Negro do in a few years what it has taken us
thousands to accomplish, and are surprised that he has disappointed us.
There is no room for discouragement. Contrast the Negro in Africa and
America to see what has been done.

Unless this unreliability is overcome it will form even a greater
handicap for the future. Southern methods of agriculture have been more
wasteful of small economies than have Northern. That a change is
imperative, in many districts at least, has been shown. Is the Negro in
a position to take advantage of these changes? At present it must be
admitted that he does not possess the knowledge to enable him to utilize
his environment and make the most out of it. It has been shown that he
is bearing little part in the development of the trucking industry, nay
more, that he does not even raise enough garden truck for his own
support. In a bulletin of the Farmer's Improvement Society of Texas I
find the following:

Very many, in the first place, do not try to make their supplies at
home. Very often much is lost by bad fences. Lots of them don't know
where their hoes, plows, single-trees, etc., are at this minute. Lots
of them buy butter, peas, beans, lard, meat and hay. * * * Well,
really, to sum up, if there's anything like scientific methods among
the vast majority of our people I don't know it. * * * I venture to
say that not one negro farmer in a hundred ever saw the back of one
of these bulletins (agricultural), much less the inside.

If some of these primary lessons have not been mastered what chance is
there that the Negro will overcome, unaided, the crop lien system and
his other handicaps and introduce diversified agriculture, stock
raising, etc.? Slavery taught him something about work and he is willing
to work, and work hard, under leadership. Herein lies the possibility of
his economic salvation. He is not yet ready as a race to stand alone and
advance at the pace demanded by America of the twentieth century. He
must be taught and the teaching must be by practice as well as by
precept. Viewed from this standpoint, though it is equally true from
another, one o