INDUSTRIAL REORGANIZATION IN ALABAMA 493
races were about equal the best system was found ; the soils were medium : the farms were small, but well cultivated, and fertilizers were used. (3) On the poorest soils only whites were found; these by industry and use of fertilizers could produce about as much as the blacks on the rich soils.
The average product of the Black Belt is lower than the lowest in the poorest white counties. Only the best of soil, as in Clarke, Monroe, and Wilcox Counties, is able to overcome the bad labor system and produce an average equal to that made by the whites in Winston, the poorest county in the state. In white counties where the average product per acre falls below the average for the surrounding region the fact is explained by the presence of blacks, segregated on the best soils, keeping down the average production. For example, Madison County in 1880 had a majority of blacks, and the average production of cotton per acre was 0.28 bales, as compared with 0.32 for the Tennessee valley, of which Madison was the richest county; in Talladega, the most fertile county of the Coosa valley, the average production per acre was 0.32, as compared with 0.40 for the rest of the valley ; in Autauga, where the blacks outnumbered the whites two to one, the average fell below that of the country around, though the soil was the best in the region. The average product of the rich prairie cultivated by the blacks is 0.27 bale per acre; the average product in the poor mineral region cultivated by whites was 0.26 to 0.28 ; in the short- leaf-pine region the whites outnumber the blacks two to one, and the average production of 0.34, while in the gravelly hill region, where the blacks are twice as numerous as the whites, the produc- tion is 0.30, the soil in the two sections being about equal. In general, the fertility of the soil being equal, the production varies inversely as the proportion of colored population to white. Den- sity of colored population is a sure sign of fertile soil ; predomi- nance of whites, a sign of medium or poor soil. Outside of the Black Belt white owners cultivate small farms, looking closely after them. The negro seldom owns the land he cultivates, and is more efficient when working under direction on the small farm in the white county. In the Black Belt nearly all land is capable of cultivation, but in the white counties a large percentage is
