The following table will give some idea of the condition and personal property of a number of families in Lowndes County:
| Adults | Children under 14 | Log Cabins | B'd Cabins | No. Rooms | Sewing Machines | Mules | Horses | Oxen | Cows | Pigs | Dogs | |
| Family 1 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | [9]0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| " 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| " 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| " 4 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| " 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| " 6 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| " 7 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| " 8 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| " 9 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| " 10 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| 10 | 35 | 16 | 11 | 8 | 25 | 1 | 8 | 6 | 1 | 14 | 2 | 10 |
It will be seen that the number of oxen is small. I should not be surprised if some of the hogs escaped observation.
An account of this district would not be complete without reference to the herb doctors who do a thriving business, charging from twenty-five cents per visit up. They make all sorts of noxious compounds which are retailed as good for various ailments. The medicines are perhaps no more harmful than the patent compounds of other places. There are also witch doctors, of whom the Negroes stand in great awe and many a poor sufferer has died because it was believed that he or she was bewitched by some evil person, hence physicians could have no power.
The budgets given indicate, and this is my own belief, that the farmers in this district are just about holding their own. They are not trained to take advantage of their environment to the full so they do not prosper as they might, while occasional designing persons take great advantage of them, thereby rendering them discouraged. The introduction of a more diversified farming, the greater utilization of local resources in fruits and vegetables, thereby giving variety in the diet, the development of pastures and stock raising would enable them to break away from the mortgage system, which retards them in many ways.
This view that the farmers here are about able to make a living is supported by the investigations of Professor Du Bois.[10] He gives the following report of 271 families in Georgia:
| Year, 1898. Price of cotton low. | ||
| Bankrupt and sold out | 3 | |
| $100 or over in debt | 61 | |
| $25 to $100 in debt | 54 | |
| $1 to $25 in debt | 47 | |
| Cleared nothing | 53 | |
| Cleared $1 to $25 | 27 | |
| Cleared $25 to $100 | 21 | |
| Cleared $100 and over | 5 | |
| —— 271 |
Regarding the general situation he says: "A good season with good prices regularly sent a number out of debt and made them peasant proprietors; a bad season, either in weather or prices, still means the ruin of a thousand black homes." Under existing conditions the outlook does not seem to me especially hopeful.
Alluvial District.