146 HUMAN FACTORS IN COTTON CULTURE 



do more than pay the customary lip service to diversifi- 

 cation. It was virtually admitted that no hope existed in 

 a voluntary acreage restriction campaign. One view is 

 that the more successful a program of sign-ups to reduce 

 cotton planting appears, the more likely it is that farm- 

 ers will break their pledges. Another group holds that 

 such reduction campaigns if successful are only tem- 

 porary and serve in the long run to increase fluctuations. 

 They follow the reasoning previously presented, that suc- 

 cessful acreage reduction is accelerated by weather con- 

 ditions to reduce production in greater proportion, and 

 this so raises the price of cotton that next year all 

 caution in regard to planting is thrown to the winds. 

 Both views point to one conclusion the futility of at- 

 tempts at acreage reduction, as heretofore practised, to 

 stabilize prices. 



Much resentment was felt by those at the convention 

 toward Texas for her disastrous increases in acreage, 

 and the Texas delegates were properly repentant. The 

 most daring and possibly the most hopeful plan, that 

 suggested by A. G. Little of Blytheville, Arkansas, was 

 defeated: It was based on the system in use in Egypt 

 and called for identical legislation by all the states to 

 restrict by law any farmer from planting more than half 

 his land in cotton. The proposal was supported by dele- 

 gates from Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, 

 strange to say, but defeated by the votes of the Eastern 

 Belt plus Arizona. It was argued against the resolution 

 that such a course would deprive the South of its mo- 

 nopoly on the world's cotton supply. "This may be one 

 brand of political economy," wrote E. E. Miller, Editor 

 of the Southern Agriculturist, "but a political economy 

 of common sense would see that a country cannot be 



