ion and is less affected by it than the
white man is one of life's ironies.

There is a brighter side to this picture, however. Of all the cultivated
land in the South 65 per cent is worked by owners (white 60.6 per cent;
colored 4.4 per cent) and this land is on the whole much better tilled
than that let to tenants. It is true that some of the landowners are
chronically in debt, burdened with mortgages and with advances for
supplies. Some of them probably produce less to the acre than tenants
working under close supervision, but the percentage of farms mortgaged is
less in the South than in any other part of the country except the
Mountain Division, and unofficial testimony indicates that few farms are
lost through foreclosure.

For years the agricultural colleges and the experiment stations offered
good advice to the Southern farmer, but they reached only a small
proportion. Their bulletins had a small circulation and were so full of
technical expressions as to be almost unintelligible to the average
farmer. Recently the writers have attempted to make themselves more
easily understood, and the usefulness of their publications has
consequently increased. The bulletins of the Department of Agriculture
are read in increasing numbers, and several agricultural papers have a
wide circulation. The "farmer's institutes" where experts in various
lines speak on their specialties are well attended, and the experimental
farms to which few visitors came at first are now popular.

Two other agencies are doing much for agricultural betterment. One is
the county demonstrator, and the other boys' and girls' clubs. Both are due
to the foresight and wisdom of the late Dr. Seaman A. Knapp, of the United
States Department of Agriculture. As early as 1903 Dr. Knapp had been
showing by practical demonstration how the farmers of Texas might
circumvent the boll weevil, which was threatening to make an end of
cotton-growing in that State. He was able to increase the yield of cotton
on a pest-ridden farm. The idea of the boys' corn club was not new when
Dr. Knapp took it up in 1908 and made it a national institution. The girls'
canning club was soon added to the list, and then came the pig club for
boys and the poultry club for girls.

The General Education Board, which, with its large resources, had been
seeking the best way to aid education in the South, was forced to the
conclusion that any educational development must be preceded by econ