Working With the Hands / Being a Sequel to "Up from Slavery," Covering the Author's Experiences in Industrial Training at Tuskegee

by Booker T. Washington

(d) Granting it can be built up and made productive, will it not take an average life-time?

(e) Will it pay to purchase such land?

(f) State the smallest amount of such land the farmer should buy expecting to make a living off it.

The plan for rotation as outlined is for a farm of forty acres, but is perfectly applicable to one of any size, even down to a garden patch. In order that our efforts might be guided with the greatest degree of intelligence, the soil was analysed and found to be seriously deficient in three very important elements of plant food, and in the order named: Nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash. In addition to this, it was practically devoid of humus (vegetable matter), and otherwise was in as bad a physical condition as chemical. Our first efforts were directed toward correcting the physical condition by deep plowing, rebuilding terraces and filling in washes. This being done, we are now ready to make definite plans for planting our forty-acre farm. In a farm this size we find it is wise to set aside four acres to be used as indicated:

(1) One acre for the house, lawn, flower garden, nut and ornamental trees. (2) One acre for the garden, orchard and small fruits. Upon this all the vegetables of various kinds, peaches, pears, plums, figs, strawberries, blackberries, grapes, etc., should be raised, not simply to supply the needs of the family, but there should be a surplus to market. (3) One acre for the barn, poultry house, pigsties, and other necessary out-buildings. (4) One acre for a good pasture where cows, horses, hogs, and stock of various kinds might be turned in from time to time. The remaining thirty-six acres should be planted as follows:

First year, sixteen acres of cowpease, eight acres of cotton, two acres of ribbon cane, three acres of corn, one acre of sorghum, one acre of peanuts, three acres of sweet potatoes, one acre of teosinte (a green fodder plant), one acre of pumpkins, cushaws, squash, etc.

The second year it will be observed that the peas change places with the cotton, corn, ribbon cane, sorghum, teosinte, pumpkins and sweet potatoes, except in a few instances—and these are where the soil was: (a) Naturally poor, as indicated by the acre where peanuts and cowpease follow each other the first and second years in order to better fit the land physically and chemically to produce an exhaustive crop like cotton; (b) Sweet potatoes following cotton and ribbon cane. Here bottom land is represented, and is, therefore, quite fertile. The fertilisers necessary to produce a good crop of sugar cane and cotton were quite sufficient to produce a good crop of potatoes with but little additional fertiliser. (c) In this we have a different condition—that of neglected bottom soil, deficient mainly in nitrogen. Here the pea is planted the first year to restore the nitrogen; and this is followed by teosinte and sorghum in one instance and pumpkins and ribbon cane in another; the physical condition of the soil being best suited to these particular crops. With the few exceptions mentioned, the third year is identical with the first.

Such a system of rotation has enabled us in seven years to make a net profit of $96.22 from one acre of this land, when in the beginning we lost $2.40 per acre.