INDUSTRIAL REORGANIZATION IN ALABAMA 489
of the corn raised. " Standing rent " was the highest form of tenancy, and only responsible persons, white or black, could rent under that system. It called for a fixed or " standing " rent for each acre or farm, to be paid in money or in cotton. The unit of value in cotton was a five-hundred-pound bale of middling grade on October i . Cotton rent practically amounted to a money rent, since price and grade had to be guaranteed. Tenants who had farm stock, farming implements and supplies, or good credit would nearly always cultivate for " standing rent." The planter exercised a controlling direction over the labor and cultivation of a crop worked "on halves;" he exercised less direction over " third and fourth " tenants, and was supposed to exercise no con- trol over tenants who paid "standing rent." In all cases the planter furnished a dwelling-house free of rent, wood and water (paid for digging wells), and pasture for the pigs and cows of the tenants. In all cases the renter had a plot of ground of from one to three acres, rent-free, for a vegetable garden and " truck patch." Here could be raised water-melons, sugar cane, potatoes, sorghum, cabbages, and other vegetables. Every tenant could keep a few pigs and a cow, chickens, turkeys, and guineas, and especially dogs, and could hunt in all the woods around and fish in all the waters. " On halves " was considered the safest form of tenancy for both planter and tenant, for the latter was only an average man. This method allowed the superior direction of the planter. 33 Many negroes worked for wages; the less intelligent and the unreliable could find no other way to work; and some of the best of them preferred to work for wages paid at the end
M My father's tenants, white and black, rented on all systems. The negroes usually began as wage-laborers or as tenants " on halves," for they had no sup- plies when they came. Then the more industrious and thrifty would save and rent farms for " third and fourth " or for " standing rent." The whites usually attained the highest grade of tenancy, and the average white man would save enough of his earnings to purchase a team, wagon, buggy, farm implements, and a year's supply, and then spend all else, though some would save enough to buy land of their own in cheaper districts, or to support themselves for a year or two while opening up a homestead in the pine woods. The negro, as a rule, rented " on halves," for he spent all his earnings and required supervision. The average negro stays only a year or two at one place before he longs for change and removes to another farm. About Christmas time, or just before, the negroes and many of the whites begin to move to new homes.
