EVOLUTION OF THE COTTON SYSTEM 63 



be the outcome of cotton cultivation the future must de- 

 termine. 50 



The future has decided. Cotton has definitely become 

 a tenant crop. More than half of the share tenants in 

 the United States are found in the eight following south- 

 ern states listed in order: Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, 

 North Carolina, Arkansas, Alabama, South Carolina, and 

 Tennessee. It was shown in the Census of 1900 51 that of 

 all the farmers to. whom cotton was the chief source of 

 income 67.7 per cent were tenants. 



A change that had been taking place in the southern 

 landscape brought to the fore new social types, created 

 new economic interests, and made the cotton farm a specu- 

 lation for urban investors. Towns were springing up all 

 over the Cotton Belt, and in these towns had grown up 

 a hustling, urban type the rising merchants, lawyers, 

 and doctors. The growth of towns had been hindered be- 

 fore the War by the factors located in the larger cities 

 who had supplied the wholesale needs of the planters and 

 marketed their cotton. With the passing of the factors 

 there grew up the supply merchant who furnished cotton 

 growers on time and bought their cotton. It was this 

 group which secured the passage of the crop lien laws en- 

 abling farmers to mortgage in January their as yet 

 unplanted crops for supplies on which to live. The de- 

 preciating value of land and the homestead exemptions 

 usual in southern states made merchants unwilling to ac- 

 cept mortgages on land. A conflict of interest ensued 

 between landlord and supply merchant as to whether the 



50 Op. cit., p. 719. 



51 Goldenweiser and Truesdell, Farm Tenancy in the United 

 States, p. 33, U. S. Census Monograph IV. 



