"(2) Where the two races are in nearly equal proportions, or where the whites are in only a slight excess over the blacks, as is the case in all sections where the soils are of average fertility, there is found the system of small farms, worked generally by the owners, a consequently better cultivation, a more general use of commercial fertilizers, a correspondingly high product per acre and a partial maintenance of the fertility of the soils. "(3) Where the whites are greatly in excess of the blacks (three to one and above) the soils are almost certain to be far below the average in fertility, and the product per acre is low from this cause, notwithstanding the redeeming influences of a comparatively rational system of cultivation. "(4) The exceptions to these general rules are nearly always due to local causes which are not far to seek and which afford generally a satisfactory explanation of the discrepancies." If we are to base our reasoning on the table cited we might argue that land ownership is a bad thing for Negroes, for tenants of both classes among them produced more than did the owners. The white cash tenants also produced more than white owners. In explaining this it is said: "The fact that cash tenants pay a fixed money rental per acre causes them to rent only such area as they can cultivate thoroughly, while many owners who are unable to rent their excess acreage to tenants attempt to cultivate it themselves, thus decreasing the efficiency of cultivation for the entire farm." This may be true of the whites, but it is a lame explanation for the blacks. Negro farmers who own more land than they can cultivate appear to be better known at Washington than they are locally. The trouble with the entire argument is that it assumes that the Negro is an independent cultivator of cotton. This is not quite the case. In all parts of the South the Negro, tenant or owner, usually receives advances from white factors, and these spend a good part of their time riding about to see that the land is cultivated in order to insure repayment of their loans. If their advice and suggestions are not followed, or if the crop is not cultivated, the supplies are shut off. On many plantations even the portion of the land to be put in cotton is stipulated. The great bulk of the cotton crop is thus raised under the immediate oversight of the white man. There is little call for any great skill on the part of the laborer. No wonder the crop of the Negro approximates that of the white man. It is to be further remembered that cotton raising has been the chief occupation of the Negro in America. The Census gives another illustration of the unhappy effects of attempting to cover very diverse conditions in one statement in the map Vol. VI, plate 3. From this one would be justified in believing that the average farm under one management in the alluvial lands of Mississippi