One woman from Bullock County, Alabama, carried away the true spirit of the conference. Not long ago, one of our agents saw a deed to a valuable piece of farm land, bought with money she had saved by selling cows. She said that she had never thought of any such plan until she had visited the Farmers' Conference and heard others tell how they had bought land. An unusual feature of this case was that the woman did not live in the town in which she had invested her money. She had made herself interested enough to seek a chance to invest her earnings in the purchase of property several miles from her home settlement. She said that it required a mighty sight of will-power to keep from buying fine clothes with the money, but she was determined to get hold of some land, and she did it without any assistance from her husband.
"Yes, of course I'll be at the next Negro Conference," wrote another farmer, "I want you to give me a chance to talk, too. I want to show Mr. Washington a turnip I raised in my own garden, and have been saving for the Conference, and I want to tell him how much I have raised and eaten out of my own garden, and how much I have saved as the result of these teachings at the annual meetings."
Another wrote recently:
"I have to buy very little to eat, for I raise with one horse all I want to eat, and a little more besides. Last year I raised nine bales of cotton, plenty of corn, sugar cane, pease, and potatoes, and many other things. Besides this, my wife raised twenty hogs, and a yard full of chickens, geese and turkeys. The only way for the farmer to get out of debt and keep out of debt is to buy a home, raise what he eats, and pay at once for what he gets out of the store."
A pilgrim from Georgia thus expressed himself:
"I came here to get my keg full of good news and glad tidings to carry back to Georgia, and I have got it. I began working for myself when I was eighteen years old. My father and mother died when I was a child. I first worked for eight dollars and fifty cents a month and my board, and cleared eighty-three dollars the first year. Then I worked on shares for a while, then I bought a mule on credit, using my money to support myself while raising a crop. Now I own fifteen hundred acres of land, all paid for. I have six rooms in my house. I don't give any mortgages. I have twenty-three plows, and a bank account. I haul on my drays about ten thousand bales of cotton every year for the planters in my county. I have another patch of fifty acres near Fort Gaines on which there is a six-room house."
"We come here to learn wisdom and knowledge," said a man from Macon County, Alabama. "I had a part of the slavery time, and I've had all of the freedom time. When I was in my eighteenth year I wanted to marry the worst way. I did it somehow, and then we tried every plan to get ahead in the world. I worked Sunday as well as Monday. I even hitched myself to the plow, and my wife plowed me. Now I have got horses, mules, corn, and plenty of everything to do me, but I have not got any home. Next year when I come here I am going to own a place of my own instead of renting it."
Scores of similar illustrations could be quoted to show that the Negro farmer is fighting his own battles, and that in his annual visits to Tuskegee he preaches, both to the students and to his fellow toilers, the gospel of work with the hands as the pathway to freedom. The kind of practical advice distributed among these farmers is illustrated in the following specimen of the leaflets issued by our "Bureau of Nature Study for Schools." This one on Hints and Suggestions for Farmers has to do with the ever-vital question of "Mortgage Lifting":
"Farmers all over the Cotton Belt are now finishing their plans for the growing of this year's crop. All sorts of financial plans have been made. Perhaps the most common among our farmers is the credit plan or crop mortgage. In this the farmer binds himself and family to make a crop, usually cotton, for any one who will 'advance' him what he must buy while growing the crop. He agrees to pay interest, ranging from ten to thirty-five per cent. on the cost of the things furnished. Thus a pair of shoes which would sell for $1.50 in cash would cost about $2 in the fall. If allowed to run until the next Fall, it would cost him about $2.50. If allowed to run three years, it would take $3.15 to pay for a $1.50 pair of shoes. If carried the fourth year, it would take $4, and one year more would call for $5.
"Too many farmers are paying $5 for shoes which would have cost them only $1.50 if they had managed their business properly. Too many times the $5 shoes are never paid for, leaving an unkindly feeling between the 'advancer' and the one 'advanced,' causing the landlord and tenant, and very often the merchant, to suffer.