Through the encouragement and helpfulness of such farming agencies as the Smith-Lever Funds for Agricultural Extension Education, the Smith-Hughes Funds for Vocational Education, The Federal Farm Loans and the Farmers’ Co-operative Demonstration Work, a new interest, rekindled enthusiasm and extra efforts have been aroused among Colored farmers in all parts of the country. They have at last been made to plainly see and fully understand that it is always to their seemingly dull country barnyard gates that the boiled-shirt, stiff-collared and learned business and college men of the cities must sooner of later turn for their ham and eggs, steak and chops, bread and butter and different vegetables. These same farmers manfully realize that they or others can only produce such necessities of life by daily mingling among the neighing horses, the mooing cows, the grunting pigs, the bleating sheep, the cackling hens and the crowing roosters. They are the people who with rolled-up sleeves cheerfully feel they must be stained with the earth’s sweet dirt (for what is so fragrant, so refreshing and so sweet as the smell of newly plowed furrows on an early spring morn, when crows overhead fly with taunting caws and robins scratch the sods for a wormy cause?) or the city folks for want of life-giving foods would soon die of starvation.
In order to help prevent the above dreaded calamity overtaking the country by learning how to better intensify crops and redouble their products, Colored farmers both young and old are taking either short or full courses in scientific agriculture in the following named schools that are a few among the many giving such instructions:
Agricultural & Mechanical College for Negroes, Normal, Ala.; Agricultural & Industrial State School, Nashville, Tenn.; Agricultural & Technical College, Greensboro, N. C.; Agricultural & Normal University., Langston, Okla.; Alcorn Agricultural & Mechanical College, Alcorn, Miss.; Branch Normal College, Pine Bluff, Ark.; Downingtown Industrial & Agricultural College, Downingtown, Pa.; Florida Agricultural & Mechanical College Tallahassee, Fla.; Georgia Normal & Agricultural College, Albany, Ga.; Hampton Normal & Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Va.; Armstrong Agricultural & Industrial Institute, West Butler, Ala.; Tuskegee Normal & Industrial Institute, Tuskegee, Ala. (extracts from Negro Year Book, 1918-1918 edition, pgs. 2-308-345)
As soon as Colored men have finished agricultural courses in the above named or other schools, they are fully prepared to locate in any section of the country and put into practice the farming theories they have just learned. It is quite natural that the majority of them want to settle and farm in the South—the birth place of their parents and usually of themselves, and the best farming district in the United States, and many of them do settle there. But quite a few (and the number is rapidly increasing) after deciding to follow farming as a life work have settled in the North, or even better have followed Horace Greeley’s famous advice “Young man, go West”. There they have settled with assurances of better human treatments and fuller civic rights due all human beings and American citizens, than they would have received if they had settled in many parts of the South. On the Pacific Coast they have found farming conditions more in accord with their special agricultural training than any place in America with the exception of the South. And whenever any of those Colored farmers arrived in California, for instance, without money to buy a few acres of land, they at once hired themselves out to farmers (without any fear of Southern peonage systems) and in a little while had saved enough money to strike out for themselves. During the time they served as farm laborers they were able to get practical and valuable experience in three ways; through experimenting they got acquainted with the Western crops that were new to them; they got acquainted with the customs and habits of the people, and they had time to carefully and slowly investigate many sections of the country before selecting the plot of land and district in which they planned to later and permanently settle.
The following two quotations are parts of articles written by Governor Wm. D. Stephens and Secretary of State Frank C. Jordan of California, and which articles appeared in the April 1, 1920 issue of the California Free Lance that has since been absorbed into the California Voice. The reading of these quotations may be of interest to those concerned.
Governor Stephens said—“Workers are what we need and opportunity was never so widely open to the Negro as it is today. A very large number of Colored workers are well fitted for farm labor and it would be better for them, and a measure of aid to our agricultural interests, if they could be diverted from the cities into the country. The farm laborer situation is difficult in this state and steps might well be taken to shift to the country those Colored men who are residing in large cities, under conditions unsuited to them. Our Negro workers could themselves help to solve this problem. Any effort initiated on their part undoubtedly would meet with active encouragement. Some adaptation to new conditions would be necessary, but this could easily be brought about through co-operation between Negro workers and the employing farmers of our state. I regard this matter of shifting workers who are misplaced in cities to the farms of our state as a matter of importance, and I invite the earnest attention of the Negro people to it as one primarily in their interest as well as being for the best interest of our state.”
Secretary of State, Jordan said in part: “California today has need of farmers and farm laborers. There is a general alarm felt by persons acquainted with farming conditions at the shortage of laborers. The farmer or farm laborer has a comfortable living under health-giving conditions and the money he makes he can save. He is an independent producer and plays a most important part in the national welfare. The California lands are marvels of richness. Truck gardening, fruit orchards, wheat and rice fields, cotton lands—in fact, nearly all farm culture—can be found in this State. The important question at present is, Where are we to find laborers to increase and intensify cultivation? Immigration from European countries has practically ceased. Mexican labor is difficult and uncertain. We can only hope for laborers to come from the more thickly settled parts of the country. The youth of today needs to be educated not only in the technique of farming, but also in the advantages of farm life. The prosperity of the nation rests largely on the agricultural workers. The city dwellers cannot reduce the high cost of living without the farmer’s co-operation in increased production. The factory worker depends upon the farmer for food. His high wages mean little to him unless food is plentiful. Let a young man consider carefully the opportunities offered by country as well as civic life—the sturdy independence, the healthful surroundings, the wholesome food, of the former—before he decides what his life work will be.”
Copied below is another article “Land Conditions” that appeared in the same issue of the Free Lance and which article goes more in detail regarding the wonderful opportunities of farm life in California—the land of not-too-cold nor not-too-hot climate, the land of singing birds, blooming flowers and golden fruits.
“Probably the greatest opportunity for the race lies in the agricultural sections of the state. Land at reasonable prices is now being offered by the Southern Pacific Land Company in sixteen counties in various parts of the state. While a great deal of this land is available for grazing purposes, yet there are large tracts awaiting the coming of the man with the plow, chief among which are sections laying in the beautiful Antelope Valley, situated in Los Angeles county, which section’s chief products are alfalfa, grain, fruit and dairying products. The soil of this valley is somewhat varied. The upper mesas and slopes in the main valley are decomposed granite of fine texture, with considerable vegetable humus. In the lower levels there are great deposits of silt and in every case the soils are light and easy to work The water conditions are all that can be desired, there being quite a deal of artesian wells, where the water is found at depths varying from 50 to 600 feet. Prices of land in this valley vary from $2 to $10 per acre for grazing land and from $10 to $71.50 for agricultural lands, with possibilities of irrigation by pumping.
“In Fresno county, the home of the raisin and the Thompson grapes, there will be found plenty of opportunities for dairying, fruit and general farming. This county has now quite a large number of Negro ranchers who are engaged profitably in various agricultural pursuits. The price of land in this vicinity ranges from $20 to $143 per acre, with fine possibilities of irrigation by pumping.