Henry Hall of Rural Route 3, Overton, leaves his potato-curing house. The log structure is apparently of recent construction and was built at a cost of $3.20. The logs were probably cut from the Hall farm. Note the ventilators at both ground level and above the door. The house also contained a stove to keep a proper temperature during the winter. Mr. Hall planted two acres of Porto Rico sweet potatoes in 1932 and harvested 900 bushels. He sold some to oil-field workers and others for 75¢ per bushel, cured what he could in his curing house, and bedded 16 bushels for his 1933 crop. In 1933 rural Texas Blacks planted 901 acres in sweet potatoes and constructed 30 curing houses patterned after commercial storage houses but much less expensive.
Date: 1933 Photographer: George W. Ackerman [?]

K.D. Carroway of Rural Route 2, Hallsville, Texas, shows off the disk cultivator he purchased with money received from renting 32 acres of his 300-acre farm to the federal government. Black Texas farmers took nearly 275,000 acres out of cotton production in 1934 to help reduce the cotton surplus. The federal government paid them about $15 per acre, or slightly over $4 million. Some of their acreage was planted in feed crops, some in family gardens, some in permanent pasture, some in temporary pasture, some in soil improvement crops, and some was allowed to be idle.
Date: July 1934 Photographer: Unknown

Rusk County Agricultural Agent H.L. Brown at the level assists Burgess and Ernest Stein of Mount Enterprize in running a line for a terrace on Ernest Stein's 300-acre farm. The Agricultural Extension Service strongly urged farmers throughout Texas to terrace their cultivated land to prevent water erosion as well as to prevent some runoff. Terracing increased the value of land by approximately $5 per acre. Mr. Stein believed in terracing because terraced land resulted in higher production, it looked better, and it did not erode. Mr. Stein, his wife, five sons, and one daughter all worked on the farm to raise fruit, vegetables, meats, and cane for syrup. During 1932-33 they added more than 100 fruit trees to their orchard.
Date: 1933 [?] Photographer: George W. Ackerman [?]