EVOLUTION OF THE COTTON SYSTEM 65 



than a slave. The masses of Negroes between the two ex- 

 tremes fared as chance and the weather let them. 54 



"The Negro," said a southern governor with the waste- 

 ful methods of tenant cultivation in mind, "skins the 

 land and the landlord skins the Negro." 



As planters failed and plantations went on the block 

 the rising urban groups tended to step into the class of 

 the landed gentry. Merchants, lawyers, and doctors 

 bought plantations as speculative investments. As the 

 urban class began to buy farms for investment, the price 

 of land tended to rise beyond reach of the small cotton 

 grower. "There is," wrote Grady, "a sure though gradual 

 rebunching of the smaller farms into large estates and 

 a tendency toward the establishment of a landholding 

 oligarchy." 5 Many landlords also moved to town. Ab- 

 sentee landlordism, too, brought lower yields, less super- 

 vision and contact with tenants, and a lower standard of 

 living for them. Farming became a financial instead of 

 an agricultural interest. Cotton, the money crop, came to 

 be exacted by landlords living in town, and the tenant's 

 interest in diversification and food supplies was disre- 

 garded. 



The rise in tenancy in the South is not to be denied. 

 The percentage of tenancy for the United States is 38; 

 in the South there are eight states with over 50 per cent 

 tenancy. No figures on tenancy are compiled for the 

 United States before 1880 but since then the percentage 

 has steadily increased for all the cotton states. The states 

 that had 35 to 45 per cent tenancy when Henry W. 

 Grady wrote now have over 60 per cent: 



64 Negro Landholders in Georgia, U. S. Dept. of Labor Bul- 

 letin 35. 



65 "Cotton and Its Kingdom," Harper' 8 Magazine, LXIII, 734. 



