In speaking of the trades taught at Tuskegee, it should be remembered that agriculture is reckoned among them, and one of the most important. A very large percentage of the negroes of the South must continue to live upon the plantations and gain a living by tilling the soil. As a general thing their knowledge of how to best do this is lamentably deficient, and they labor under great disadvantages. They do not own their land, but rent it at ruinous rates. They mortgage their crops and eat them up before they are harvested. They plant nothing but cotton, because that is about the only crop that can be mortgaged, and are therefore obliged to buy food at any exorbitant prices which the dealers may demand. Tuskegee tries to remedy these evils by teaching the young men who come there the best methods of modern farming. If the farmers' sons can remain only a short time they carry back to the home plantations some new ideas to put in practice there; if they can remain for the full term of three or four years, they are fitted to take full charge of the work on any large plantation. The institute has a farm on which are raised the crops best adapted to the soil and climate of that part of the South. The men who have charge of this work are among the most able in the entire force of instructors. Mr. C. W. Green, the farm superintendent, has no superior in the South as a practical farmer. Mr. George W. Carver, the head of the agricultural department, is a graduate of the Iowa State College. To my mind, no more valuable text-book for Southern scholars could be furnished than a little pamphlet which this man has recently issued, telling how he raised between two hundred and three hundred bushels of sweet potatoes from an acre of ground, whereas the average yield of that crop in the same part of the country is less than fifty bushels to the acre. [Illustration: AN INSTITUTE CABBAGE FIELD.] Tuskegee has a large herd of cows and a good dairy and creamery, in which a class of men receive instruction in dairy work. An incident which occurred in connection with this dairy furnishes a story which Mr. Washington likes to tell, because it illustrates a point which he constantly impresses upon his colored audiences. One of the surest ways to abolish the color line, he tells his hearers, is to learn to do some kind of work so well that your services will be really needed. [Illustration: THE START FROM THE BARN. "FARM STUDENTS."] "There came to my knowledge," says Mr. Washington, "the fact that the owners of a certain creamery were in search of an able superintendent. We had just graduated a man who was thoroughly capable in every way, but he was just about as black as it is possible for a man to be. Nevertheless, I sent him on to apply for the place. When he made his errand known to the owners they looked at him and said: "'A colored man? Oh, that would never do, you know.' [Illustration: DAIRYING DIVISION; MAKING BUTTER.]