G. S. Dickerman, in which he showed that among the Negro farmers the
owners and managers formed 59.8 per cent of the total in Virginia, 57.6
per cent in Maryland, 48.6 per cent in Kentucky, falling as we go South
to 15.1 per cent in Alabama, 16.4 per cent in Mississippi, and 16.2 per
cent in Louisiana, rising to 30.9 per cent in Texas. Evidently the
forces at work are various.

Within a few months, at the suggestion of Mr. Horace Plunkett, of the
Irish Agricultural Organization Society, a new work has been taken up,
whose course will be watched with great interest. I quote from a letter
of Mr. Plunkett to Dr. Wallace Buttrick, of the General Education Board:

From what I have seen of the negro character, my own impression is
that the race has those leader-following propensities which
characterize the Irish people. It has, too, I suspect, in its
mental composition the same vein of idealism which my own
countrymen possess, and which makes them susceptible to
organization, and especially to those forms of organization which
require the display of the social qualities to which I have alluded
and which you will have to develop. These characteristics which
express themselves largely, the old plantation songs, in the form
of religions exercises, and in the maintenance of a staff of
preachers out of all proportion I should think, to the spiritual
requirements, should, in my opinion, lend themselves to associative
action for practical ends if the organizing machinery necessary to
initiate such action were provided.

What, then, is my practical suggestion? It is that your board, if
it generally approves of the idea, should take one, two, or, at the
most, three communities, such as that we inquired about, and organize
them on the Irish plan. The farmers should at first he advised to
confine their efforts to some simple object, such as the joint
purchase of their immediate agricultural requirements. * * * I would
at first deal solely with the colored people, beginning in a very
small way, leaving larger developments for the future to decide.

Hampton Institute has taken up the suggestion and is planning to
organize a community. Everything will, of course, depend on the
management as well as on the people. If the results are as satisfactory
as they have been in Ireland the efforts will be well expended.

With this bri