Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/510

 494 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

rocky, in hills, forests, mountains, etc. But many soils in south- east and north Alabama, formerly considered unproductive, have been brought under cultivation by the use of commercial fer- tilizers, hauled, in many cases, from twenty to a hundred miles. Fertilizers have not yet come into general use in the Black Belt. In the negro districts are still found horse-power gins and old wooden cotton compresses; in the white counties, steam and water power and the latest machinery. In the white counties it has always been a general custom to raise a part of the supplies on the farm; in the Black Belt this has not been done since the war. 40

Though many of the white farmers remained under the crop- lien bondage, there was a steady gain toward independence on the part of the more industrious and economical. But not until toward the close of the century did emancipation come for many of the struggling white farmers.

WHITES IN OTHER INDUSTRIES

In other directions the whites did better. They opened the mines of north Alabama, cut the timber of south Alabama, built the railroads and factories, and to some extent engaged in com- merce. 41 Market gardening is now a common occupation. Negro labor in factories failed. It was the negro rather than slavery that prevented, and still prevents, the establishment of manufactures. 42 The development of manufactures in recent years has benefited principally the poor people of the white coun- ties. " For this mill people is not drawn from foreign immi- grants nor from distant states, but it is drawn from the native- born white population, the poor whites, that belated hill-folk

40 See also Kelsey, Negro Farmer a valuable monograph on present condi- tions in the Black Belt. A pamphlet on cotton published by the Manufacturers' Record shows that conditions in Mississippi are similar.

a So poor were the people after the war that, even though the worth of the mineral and timber lands was well known, there was no native capital to develop them, and the lion's share went to outsiders, who bought the lands at tax and mortgage sales during and after the carpet-bag regime.

" Slavery or negroes prevented the establishment of manufactures by crowd- ing out a white population capable of carrying on manufactures. The census shows that in 1860 the white districts had a fair proportion of manufactures for a state less than forty years old.