When the epochal pen-stroke fell and $3,000,000,000 worth of Southern property was suddenly obliterated as property, yet stood there in plain world’s view, like the metamorphosed dragon’s teeth, as men with the rights of men, there were masters of statecraft everywhere who faced one another blankly, asking how such a situation was to resolve itself. Not even the most sanguine saw any reason to hope that so complex an issue as that involved in the relation of the freedmen to the land could be brought to satisfactory or righteous solution until at least three or four generations had mingled dust with dust. The relation of the freedmen to the soil! Here was the problem that must have given pause to an older state, a European nation, say, upon the eve of liberating at one stroke four millions of serfs. But young nations, like young individuals, often let their deep convictions sweep them unprepared into strange conditions and perils, from which only the magnificent vitality of youth rescues them without disaster. The United States Government has, for half a dozen years past, recognized it as a duty to compile and offer for public reading certain facts and figures relating to the progress of the negro in acquiring education, following different pursuits and trades, and accumulating property. Out of the various reports upon these subjects issued from the Department of Labor since 1897 it is probably the information set forth regarding the property-holdings of the former slaves and slaves’ children in three or four Southern states that will strike the greatest number of people with surprise, even with that form of astonishment which borders on unbelief. Yet this surprise is of the healthful type, and the unbelief passes when a closer investigation is made into the matter. The closer investigation is undoubtedly worth while, and it will prove profitable for a little while to exchange general statements and sweeping surveys for definite figures, well verified data and typical cases within a limited territory. Therefore, to illustrate clearly that particular phase of the negro’s progress, the adjustment of his relations to the land and his steadily advancing gains in real estate and other property-holdings, it will serve best to take the state of Georgia and present certain comparative data relating to the situation here.