2 HUMAN FACTORS IN COTTON CULTURE 



historical attitudes of Europe. "There are not in the 

 United States," he writes, "the historic memories of so 

 many national wrongs and wars. . . . There is not here 

 the variety of languages nor races nor the sharp con- 

 trasts in cultural types ; there has not been the same 

 bitterness of class conflicts; nor the same pressure of 

 economic need, inducing the various regions to seek by 

 arms to acquire the means of subsistence, the control of 

 natural resources." 



It is in the traits of her urban-industrial culture that 

 America is most homogeneous; in her rural life she dis- 

 plays more diversity. Possibly the most satisfactory 

 classification of the natural regions of the United States 

 is that worked out by Dr. Oliver E. Baker. 4 To him an 

 agricultural region is a large area of land characterized 

 by a homogeneity in crops grown but sufficiently unlike 

 adjacent areas to be noticeable. The economic culture 

 of certain plants and consequently the agricultural re- 

 gions are dependent upon the following physical con- 

 ditions : 



1. Moisture conditions, rainfall, and rate of evaporation. 



2. Temperature conditions, length of growing season. 



3. Topography, contour of the land. 



4. Soils, physical, chemical, and bacteriological factors. 6 



In regard to climatic factors the United States falls 

 roughly into four areas: a cold northern, a warm south- 

 ern, a moist eastern, and a dry western region. 6 In regard 

 to soils there are three main regions: the central plains, 

 largely dark-soiled grasslands ; the East and South, 

 largely light-colored forest lands; and the western arid 



3 "Sections and Nations," The Tale Review (Oct., 1922), p. 2. 



4 Op. cit., p. 468. 5 Ibid., p. 460. Ibid., p. 467. 



