The Black Belt has never again reached the level of production it had in 1880.

But the white district kept improving slowly.
"By the use of commercial fertilizers, vast regions once considered barren have been brought into profitable cultivation, and really afford a more reliable and constant crop than the rich alluvial lands of the old slave plantations.

In nearly every agricultural county in the South there is to be observed, on the one hand, this section of fertile soils, once the heart, of the old civilization, now abandoned by the whites, held in tenantry by a dense Negro population, full of dilapidation and ruin; while on the other hand, there is the region of light, thin soils, occupied by the small white freeholder, filled with schools, churches, and good roads, and all the elements of a happy, enlightened country life." All the systems devised for handling Negro labor proved to be only partially successful.

The laborer was migratory, wanted easy work, with one or two holidays a week, and the privilege of attending political meetings, camp meetings, and circuses.

A thrifty Negro could not make headway because his fellows stole from him or his less energetic relations and friends visited him and ate up his substance.