Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-09-29
THE EEGRo SHARE FARMER.

Ihe changes wrought by the CIVIL war
in the South have produced one character
whom we found one of the most interest
ing studies of recent trip through the
South. We allude to the Negro Share
Farmer. At home, in his ramshackle
cabin, among his lean pigs, his bony cattle
and his always numerous family, or in the
market place, with his spike team, often
composed of mule and COW, which he
has driven long days journey to sell a
dollars worth of wood or a couple of BUSH
els of potatoes, he presents grotesque and
interesting type. 1t would be difficult,
probably, to get down to poorer and less
profitable agriculture than the share farmer
practices. But he manages to serape liv-
ing out of the ground, exactly how he
would perhaps sometimes find it difficult
to explain himself.
You come upon his cabin among the pine
woods, with patch OF scraggy corn be-
hind it, and the ground around strewn
with faggots, among which pick a strag-
Cling crew of rusty fowls. a couple of
ours bark furiously at you, and couple OF
pigs, which look like dogs, they are so
bony and long legged, trot grunting away
into the brush. The messy roof ia sagging
on its yielding beams there are great tis-
sures in the mud pastered chimney, and
the wind finds ingress through the cracks
between the slabs and logs of the walls,
from which the mud has fallen. The CON-
motion your approach has aroused brings a
troop of children tumbling over one an
other out into the road, to watch you with
wide open mouths and eyes, and shrinking
back when you look at them. A sturdy
courtesy in the doorway !; behind her you
see figure like the witch of fairy tale
covering in the big fireplace the figure of
some old grandmother or grandfather, car
rying the weight of nearly a century on a
bent back. As you ride on, you perhaps
come upon the farmer, sturdy and I'M
couth, hoeing in his potato patch, or wan
dering among MS corn or cotton.
The share farmer obtains his title from
the tenure by which he holds his land. He
rents it at the simple price of hall its yield.
1t is commonly portion OF some large
plantation, often of the same on which he
once labored. The system of share farm
ing has given existence to another type be-
sides the farmer himself. This is the
banker as he calls himself the usurious
money lender as he really is. This worthy,
like the class he thrives IF of, is negro.
He is in a small way capitalist, and his
business is simply lending money on the
security of the share farmers crop. Few
of the thriftless blacks can resist the temp
tation of anticipating their gains, and the
banker is an obliging friend, when he con.
siders it safe to be so. In business he is,
by all accounts, desperately hard and grind.
ing, otherwise he is eminently respectable,
and not unfrequently preacher of no lit
tie local fame. Between the money he
owes this creditor and his store account
for molasses, tobacco etc., also secured by
his crop, the share farmer is often saved
the trouble of handling any money at all
for il, when it has been gathered.
Such as it is, the existence of the negro
share farmer is not devoid of elements of
picturesqueness. His labor is hard and his
fare coarse, but he is tough, rude man,
and has no craving for unknown luxuries.
Among the fogs of early day he is at work;
when night falls he fiddles or croons his
simple melodies before the yawning fire.
place of his cabin. He generally has an
old gun and wages war upon such game as
the woods around him shelter. What lit
tie leisure he enjoys he spends in sleep. In |
L06 SCdl6 Ol euuCALlUH ub TALKS very lUWs ]
He cannot read or write. His ideas are
frequently clouded by superstition, though |
quite often he exhibits peculiarly keen
native wit and cunning, which make him a
great bargainer, and stand him In good |
stead in his dealings with men of better
knowledge. His dress is a mass of patches
and of rags. Bat he is as well dressed as
his neighbors, and has no ambition to
Guido them. His children wear single |
garment, q shirt of coarse cotton, appa-
rently never washed. The women folks
own q dress of calico each, and snowy |
cotton handkerchief and shoes for state &C.
casions If the farmer has any money he
ties it up in old rags and hides it in holes
in his fireplace or under the hearth. Rak-
ing out his money at night and counting it
by the freight is his greatest, perhaps his
only luxury. American Agricultural.