justifiable as
ownership of the land is the first requisite for the proper interest
in, and love for the work being done, to entitle a man to the name of
farmer.

In order to properly appreciate the opportunities and advantages of
farm life to himself and his children, there must be that love for the
farm itself, its rocks, its woods, its hills, its shady rills and its
meadows that can come in no other way than through the proud sense of
ownership. There must be the feeling of kinship for the very soil
itself; the birds, the bees, the flowers must all be held dear to the
heart of him who would know nature's choicest secrets and reap rich
harvests from her beautiful storehouse.

In no field are the prospects brighter for the negro than in that of
agriculture. There are thousands of acres of land in the South and
Southwest that may be purchased upon terms so favorable that the land
being purchased, may, by proper management, be made to yield
sufficient income to meet the payments.

In the combination of a mild climate, cheap land, with easy payments,
ready markets and previous training of the Negro, God seems to be
offering special inducements for him to come out from the condition of
a landless tenant--that may grow into a serfdom worse than slavery--to
that of worthy, independent and self-respecting land owners.

There is no field in which he meets so little of the unreasoning and
unreasonable prejudice as in farming.

The products of the farm are the necessaries of life and people do not
stop to question too closely as to whence they come or by whom
produced.

Owing to the growth of manufacturing in the South, especially of
cotton goods and the consequent removal of large numbers of the poor
whites into the cities and towns, just now would seem to be the high
tide of the Negroes' opportunity to become an independent class of
citizens; and we should be careful to seize it at its flood, or all
the rest of our life's voyage may be bound in shallows and miseries
more distressing than those already passed.

The opportunity for buying land, becoming independent and even
wealthy, are, indeed, grand, but the fact must ever be kept in mind
that the present favorable conditions will not obtain indefinitely.
Let the tide of European immigration once turn southward and
competition immediately becomes sharper, and the further progress of
the Negro decidedly more difficult.

If the Negro would put himself in position to