told of a case in which a young white man was
fined for attempting to seduce a colored girl. The races have kept in
touch. White ministers still preach in negro churches, address
Sunday-schools, etc.

In all save a few of the poorer districts the old one-roomed cabin has
given place to a comfortable house of several rooms. The houses are
often white-washed, although their completion may take a good many
years. Stoves have supplanted fireplaces. The fences about the yards are
often neat and in good repair. So far as housing conditions are
concerned, I have seen no rural district of the South to compare with
this. The old cabin is decidedly out of fashion.

Turning to the farm proper, there are other evidences of change. There
are no women working in the fields, their time being spent about the
house and the garden. The system of crop liens is unknown. Each farmer
raises his own supplies, smokes his own meat or buys at the store for
cash or on credit. Wheat and corn are ground in local mills. The heavy
interest charges of other districts are thus avoided. It is stated that
a great number of the Negroes are buying little places, and this bears
out the census figures, which show that of the Negro farmers 90.9 per
cent in this county are owners or managers; the average for the negroes
as a whole is 27.1 per cent.

Although so many earn money in the oyster business, there are others who
have gotten ahead by sticking to the farm. T---- now owns part of the
place on which he was a slave, and his slave-time cabin is now used as a
shed. He began buying land in 1873, paying from $10 to $11.50 per acre,
and by hard work and economy now owns sixty acres which are worth much
more than their first cost. With the help of his boys, whom he has
managed to keep at home, he derives a comfortable income from his land.
His daughter, now his housekeeper, teaches school near by during the
winter. What he has done others can do, he says.

Y---- is another who has succeeded. His first payments were made from
the sale of wood cut in clearing the land. In 1903 his acres were
planted as follows:

Orchard 2 acres.
Woodland 8 acres.
Pasture 10 acres.
Corn 8 acres.
Rye 3/4 acres.
Potato patch
Garden and yard.

His children are being trained at Hampton, and he laughingly says that
one boy is already telling him how to get more produce from his land.

B---- is an oysterman duri