CHAPTER H 



THE COTTON BELT: ITS REGIONS AND ITS 

 HUMAN ECOLOGY 



SPECIALIZED REGION 



IN LESS than 3 per cent of the world's land area 60 per 

 cent of the world's cotton supply is grown. 1 The Cotton 

 Belt of the American South is thus one of the most highly 

 specialized agricultural regions in the world. It contains 

 about 295,000,000 acres, nearly one-sixth of the land 

 area of the continental United States, extends 1600 miles 

 in length, and averages 300 miles in breadth. In this area 

 are 2,100,000 farms, one-third of the number in the 

 United States, 2 which produced in 1919 crops valued at 

 $3,800,000,000, one-fourth of the total farm income of 

 the United States. 3 In this belt 42 per cent of the crop 

 land was in cotton in 1919, and the value of the cotton 

 crop was equal to the value of all other crops in the Belt 

 combined. 4 As a matter of course cotton occupies the best 

 land in the Belt, and the time devoted to other crops is 

 determined by the demands of the cash crop. The value 



1 Oliver E. Baker, "Agricultural Regions of North America," 

 Part II, "The South," Economic Geography (Jan., 1927), p. 65. 



2 These are, of course, census figures, but the census counts as a 

 separate farm each tenant's holding in the South. This gives the 

 South twice as many farms per unit of area as the remainder of 

 the states. If each plantation were counted as one holding the 

 South would fall behind in number of farms. 



3 Baker, op. cit., p. 63. 4 Ibid., pp. 77, 79. 



