ver
the students for straightforward and manly endeavor has been
truly helpful. The respect and esteem in which he is held by
the graduates and undergraduates are most noteworthy. In
August, 1900, Mr. Hunt called together the farmers of
Mecklenburg and surrounding counties for the purpose of
holding a farmers' conference. A permanent organization was
effected, of which he was made president. The influence of
these annual conferences is far-reaching and will no doubt
result in great good to the farming class of western North
Carolina. He was for several years the president of the
Queen City Real Estate Company of Charlotte, N. C., an
organization designed to help those wishing to obtain homes.
He was forced to relinquish this work because of other
duties. Mr. Hunt is a strong and courageous young man, he is
firm in his convictions and believes the royal road to
success is attained through the faithful performance of each
day's duties. His sympathies are near to the interests of
the working classes. As a college-bred man he urges his
people to become skilled artisans and to build up reliable
business enterprises and thus become independent. His
kindness of heart and plain honest dealing with his
fellow-man, along with his intellectual attainment, have won
for him a host of friends and made him a popular man with
all the people.

While attending Atlanta University, Mr. Hunt met the
girl--Miss Florence S. Johnson, of Raleigh, N. C.--who in
the year 1893 became his wife and to whom much of whatever
success he has attained is attributable. To them there have
been three bright and beautiful children born--two girls and
a boy.

In a chapter on this subject it may not be out of place to give some
little attention to the early history of the Negro as a farmer in
America.

Without stopping to discuss the motives of the sea captain who brought
over the first load of Negroes to America, or why the Northern
colonists discontinued, at a comparatively early date, the use of
slave labor, let us note a few things about the Negro in the South.

The fact that they could easily endure the summer sun of the cotton
belt; that they learned quickly the simple methods of farming used in
the cultivation of cotton, rice, sugar-cane, and tobacco; that they
required but little in the way of foo