ash money to pay for them." And again, "I'm a-feared of
that 'mobile. I'd druther ride behint old Nell in the jolt wagon."

Recently a Harvard sociologist, Dr. C. C. Zimmerman, has suggested that,
because the Appalachian and Ozark farmers are producing children in
excess of the number "required to maintain a population status quo,"
they pull up stakes and settle in "declining rural New England."

However, those in a position to know, through long years of close
contact with the southern mountaineer and his needs, point out that no
resettlement or colonizing plan can be worked out until a better program
of regional analysis is first accomplished. They point out that many a
mountain farmer would not earn in a whole lifetime of toil enough money
to make a down payment on "even a rundown New England farm."

Besides there is still in the makeup of the mountaineer that spirit of
independence. He does not want to rent. He wants to own outright, even
if his property is no more than a house seat. There are few
sharecroppers in the southern highlands. A mountaineer would rather
suffer starvation than be subservient. Though he may be illiterate he
still remembers, because the story has been handed on by word-of-mouth,
the suffering and mistreatment of his forbears across the sea.

To add to his security today there is the Tenant Purchase program for
rehabilitation through the United States Department of Agriculture, and
mountain men themselves are selected as members of the committee. It is
a part of the FSA. The _Big Sandy News_, July 25, 1941, carries this
story to the mountaineer: "The Tenant Purchase program provides for the
purchase of family type farms by qualified tenants under the
Bankhead-Jones Tenant Purchase Act. Farm Security Administration
rehabilitator loans are available to low income farm families,
ineligible for credit elsewhere, for the purchase of livestock,
workstock, seed, fertilizer and equipment, in accordance with carefully
planned operation of the farm and home. About 150 farm families in
Lawrence county have already been helped by this program.

"The services of debt adjustment committeemen are available to all
farmers, as well as to FSA borrowers. The committeemen will assist
creditors and farm debtors to reach an amicable adjustment of debts
based on the ability to pay."

In this particular section of the Blue Ridge, while some are looking to
the soil, others have an eye on the waters above the ear