ng the winter. He has purchased a small place
of four acres, for which he paid $18 per acre. This ground he cultivates
and has a few apple, plum and peach trees in his yard. His case is
typical.

Wages in the county are not high. House servants get from $3 to $8 per
month. Day laborers are paid from 50 to 75 cents a day. Farm hands get
about $10 a month and two meals daily (breakfast and dinner). I have
already mentioned that farm laborers were getting fewer, and those left
are naturally the less reliable. Many white farmers are having
considerable difficulty in carrying on their places. The result is that
many are only partially cultivating the farms, and many of the younger
men are abandoning agriculture. What the final result will be is hard to
tell.

In summarizing it may be said that agriculture is being somewhat
neglected and that the opportunity to earn money in the oyster industry
acts as a constant deterrent to agricultural progress, if it is not
directly injurious. Here, as elsewhere, there is room for improvement in
methods of tilling the soil and in rotation of crops, use of animal
manures, etc.

The general social and moral improvement has been noted. It is a
pleasure to find that one of the strongest factors in this improvement
is due to the presence in the county of a number of graduates of Hampton
who, in their homes, their schools and daily life, have stood for better
things.

CENTRAL VIRGINIA.

The difficulty of making general statements true in all districts has
elsewhere been mentioned. The reader will not be surprised, therefore,
to find many things said in the immediately preceding pages inapplicable
to conditions in the tobacco districts. The little town of Farmville,
Va., is the market for some 12,000,000 pounds of tobacco yearly. The
county Prince Edward contained in 1890 9,924 Negroes and in 1900 but
9,769, a decrease of 155. The county does not give one the impression of
agricultural prosperity. The surface is very rolling, the soil sandy and
thin in many places. Along the bottoms there is good land, of less value
than formerly because of freshets. Practically all of the land has been
under cultivation at some time, and in heavily wooded fields the corn
rows may often be traced. On every side are worn-out fields on which
sassafras soon gets a hold, followed by pine and other trees.

Labor conditions have been growing worse, according to common report. It
is harder to get farm hands t