operated likewise to send the Negro thither.

I. The Divorce of the Negro from the Soil.--With other rural
populations improvements in agriculture have made fewer workers
necessary. In the case of the Negro, the main moving force from the
rural districts since 1860 has been the breaking down of the old
regime. The decades from 1840 to 1890, except 1870 to 1880, or the
period of the "industrial paralysis" after the panic of 1873, were
decades of remarkable urban growth in the United States.[5] The first
two decades of this time were the years of violent slavery agitation.
Then followed the Civil War and the boon of freedom, which gave rise
to an unusual mobility of Negro labor. The inevitable _Wanderlust_
which sudden social upheaval entails was increased by Ku-Klux
terrorism and the breaking down of the slave plantation system.[6]
Thousands of the wandering freedmen flocked to the Union army posts
which were located in towns and cities.

This was only the beginning. The landless freedman furnished occasion
for the creation of the share-tenant and crop-lien systems. In many
cases these handicaps often became intolerable under dishonest
merchants, unscrupulous landlords, and ill-treatment by overseers.[7]
All this tended to loosen the hold of the Negro tenant upon the soil.

Simultaneously with these dominant forces in agriculture, another
began to be felt. The one crop of cotton or tobacco taxed the land in
many sections year after year until it was worn out. In 1899, 70.5 per
cent of Negro farmers reported cotton as the principal source of
income. Tobacco formed the principal source of income of 16 per cent
of Negro farmers in Virginia, of 30.1 per cent in Kentucky and of 18.7
per cent in Maryland.[8] Compared with the growing industrial
pursuits, these old agricultural lands no longer offer attractive
returns.[9]

Again, where thrift, improvement in agricultural methods and knowledge
develop, just as among other farmers, there begins to be a surplus of
hands to the cultivator, and Negroes turn toward better paid
employment in the urban centres.

It is true that there are large uncultivated, virgin areas of the
Southwest, especially in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas,
and Texas, that are calling loudly for farm labor. The population
these areas can support is very considerable and the returns to labor
are better than in many of the older agricultural sections. Granting
this, the tendency of modern civil