In the Coastal Plains 23 per cent of the 339 farmers studied were landowners ; in the Piedmont 54 per cent of 335 families owned their farms. In the Coastal Plains 59 per cent of the families studied were white; in the Piedmont, 56 per cent. Renters averaged 5.42 members per family in the Piedmont and 5.05 in the Coastal Plains, while the landowner had 4.17 and 5.37 persons per family. The average number of acres cultivated per family was slightly less than eighteen; for renters it was slightly over sixteen. The higher cash incomes for the Coastal Plain farmers are due to the larger acreage in cash crops, cotton and tobacco.
This gross income, however, is supplemented by food raised on the farm. This ranged from around $500 for owners to around $200 for croppers. (See Table XV.) None of these families, averaging over five members, consumed as much as two dollars worth of food per day, less than forty cents per person. There were six groups among tenants and croppers that consumed food to the value of less than a dollar per family per day. It is again noted that "the per cent of family food supply raised on the farm progressively declines from landlord to owner to tenant to cropper." 85 Some items in the diet are worthy of consideration. For instance, the production of milk per day per person reached as high as a quart only for the white landlord group. For the white farmer in general, it ranged below .4 of a quart ; for Negro renters " from .07 to .6. The production of pork ranged from 600 to 200 pounds per family.' The data on housing is also significant. The average landless farmer had 3.74 rooms in his house as compared with 4.61 for owners. The average white farmer had 4.38 rooms in his house as compared to 3.72 for the Negro farmer. Landowners had 1.07 persons per room as compared with 1.38 persons per room for land less farmers. White homes had 1.11 persons per bed as compared to 1.52 for Negro homes. Lastly, 17.6 per cent of landless farmers lived in one or two-room houses, and 14.4 of all whites and 13.9 per cent of all Negroes lived in homes of two rooms or less." Not a Negro family nor any white tenant or cropper family in the area surveyed had running water, an indoor toilet, or a bathtub in his home. In the landless families over 31 per cent of the fathers and mothers could not read. The average cropper had attained only to the third grade in school, while the average Negro farmer of all ranks had received less than a first grade education. This exhaustive survey of the owners, tenants, and croppers in cotton and to bacco-growing areas shows with the realism of statistics the low living standards in the old Cotton Belt. It is true that 1921 was a bad year for cotton, but all of the conditions presented in the survey must be regarded as the cumulative result of years of marginal incomes.
A study made by J. T. Sanders " for 1919 and pub lished by the Department of Agriculture in 1922 de voted itself to the analysis of living conditions of 368 cotton farmers in six counties of the Black Prairie of Texas. In this region the change from a grazing econ omy to cotton farming has been unusually rapid and the development of the tenant system has kept pace. The historical background of the plantation system was ab sent in the Black Lands, and cotton farming has accord ingly been based on an infiltration of white tenants. Ac cording to the 1920 Census the percentage of Negro farmers was still low-15.9 per The standards of living as shown by the total cost of family living for 368 unselected farm operators was $965 for share croppers, $1,243 for share tenants, and $1,742 for owners. The average size of families was found to be about the same, so that the living cost of the crop per family can be estimated at 55 per cent, and the average share tenant's living at 71 per cent of the cost of family living of owners." Of all living expenses crop
pers have $262 furnished by the farm, share tenants $424, and owners $575. Thus croppers receive only 41 per cent, and share tenants 75 per cent as much family living from the farm as owners. Croppers, thus with the lowest standard of living, $965, buy the most groceries, $310, to $296 for tenants and $294 for owners. The figures are not adequate in that they do not show the wide variations in knowledge of the selection, preparation, use, and qualities of the articles of diet. Many of these articles are bought at country stores, where often no provision is made for an adequate supply of milk, vege tables, and fruit.
The average amount spent for recreation, education, and advancement goods is strikingly small for all classes. Ten to fifteen dollars per family per year is spent for recreation. "Few families of any tenure class take vaca tions and but few more patronize movies or theaters." It is interesting to note that approximately twice as much is spent for tobacco and similar personal expenses as for recreation." About one out of six croppers own automobiles to one out of two share tenants and three out of four owners. Telephones cost less and are rela tively more in use. About one out of five croppers, half the share tenants, and six to seven out of ten owners have telephones." All owners read periodicals and daily papers, but 39.1 per cent of croppers reported no period icals whatever." In the schools it was found that 96.5 per cent of own ers' daughters were promoted for the school year as com pared with only 77.2 per cent of tenants' daughters ; and 88.6 per cent of owners' sons were promoted as compared with only 65.6 per cent of tenants' sons. As Sanders states, "the tenant's child is from six months to a year behind the owner's child in grade attainments." " The enrollment of tenants' children reaches its lowest stage during cotton-picking time in October, November, and December. "This low enrollment . . . is due to the fact that tenants as a rule feel that they cannot afford to hire their cotton picked and to the fact that the land lords expect, and sometimes demand, that renters' chil dren be put into the cotton fields in order to rush picking as much as possible." The low enrollment for cotton ten ants' children during other parts of the year is due to "the fact that children of tenants who move into the school district are not enrolled the first part of the school term, while those moving out are not enrolled during the latter part of the term." 46 The relation of living purchased to the cash receipts from the cotton farm affords a problem full of interest and difficulty. It has been shown that the living furnished the farm family ranges around 40 per cent of the total expenditures and is often less for the lower levels of tenure. For each family, the food, fuel, and shelter from the farm home tend to be a constant figure, while living purchased varies with the fluctuations of agricultural prosperity. Thus in 1918 and 1919, years of good farm prices, the family living from the farm was only one fifth of the total family income for 2,967 families studied; in 1921 and 1922, years of agricultural depression, the family living was about one-third of the total family in come from 3,597 farm families studied by the Depart ment." Living from the farm thus serves as a balancing factor to conserve in some measure the family's standards during depressions. The wide fluctuations in the price of cotton, it can be seen, give the extent of diversifica tion, on which the living from the farm depends, a most important bearing on the standard of living.