is
between $50 and $75 per year. The rations given out are no longer merely
pork and meal, with which it is stated that the Negroes are not now
content, but include a more varied diet.

The customary rent is one-fourth of all that is produced, the landlord
paying one-fourth of the fertilizer (universally called guano in this
district). Tobacco makes heavy demands on the soil and at least 400
pounds, a value of about $4.50 per acre, should be used. When the
landlord furnishes the horse or mule he pays also one-half of the
fertilizer and gets one-half of the produce. The rent on tobacco land is
thus large, but the average cash rental is between $2 and $3.

The standard rotation of crops is tobacco, wheat, clover, tobacco. The
clover is not infrequently skipped, the field lying fallow or
uncultivated until exhausted. The average farmer thus has about as many
acres in wheat as in tobacco and raises perhaps twelve bushels of wheat
per acre. Some corn is also raised, and I have seen fields so exhausted
that the stalk at the ground was scarcely larger than my middle finger.
The corn crop may possibly average 10 to 15 bushels per acre, or, in
Virginia terminology, 2 to 3 barrels.

The average farmer under present conditions just about meets his
advances with the tobacco raised. He has about enough wheat to supply
him with flour; perhaps enough corn and hay for his ox or horse;
possibly enough meat for the family. The individual family may fall
short on any of these. The hay crop is unsatisfactory, largely through
neglect. In May, 1903, on a Saturday, I saw wagon after wagon leaving
Farmville carrying bales of western hay. This is scarcely an indication
of thrift.

The impression one gets from traveling about is that the extensive
cultivation of tobacco, in spite of the fact that it is the cash crop
and perhaps also the most profitable, is really a drawback in that other
possibilities are obscured. It may be that the line of progress will not
be to abandon tobacco, but to introduce more intensive cultivation, for
the average man, white or black, does not get a proper return from an
acre. To-day there is always a likelihood that more tobacco will be
planted than can be properly cultivated, for it is a plant which demands
constant and careful attention until it is marketed.

B---- has a big family of children and lives in a large cabin, one room
with a loft. He owns a pair of oxen and manages to raise enough to feed
them. He