AROUND THE YEAR WITH COTTON 151 



for these processes are set by nature; they are cultural 

 in the sense that they are determined by the demands of 

 plants for cultivation; they are also cultural in the 

 broader sense of social culture that has resulted from 

 the adaptation of men to land and has been handed down 

 as patterns to be followed. 



If the man from Mars could obtain a bird's-eye view 

 of the agricultural workers of the South as they move 

 around the seasons with King Cotton he would observe a 

 vast and ever changing panorama. In cotton fields over 

 ten million men, women, and children each season are to 

 draw most of their sustenance from the fleece of the cot- 

 ton boll. He would see in many parts of the Cotton Belt 

 men who from year to year seemed constantly moving 

 about in aimless circles; in other parts he would look 

 down upon men whose habitations were fixed. He would 

 find black men and white men going around the season 

 with cotton, Negro croppers in the deltas and the Black 

 Belts of Mississippi and Alabama, working for white 

 planters on great plantations ; white tenants interspersed 

 with black in the East; owners of small farms in- red 

 upland cotton areas. In Texas he would see a great new 

 expanse of prairie cotton land coming more and more to 

 be cultivated by white tenants. And as the cotton plant 

 grows, flowers, and fruits he would note the human 

 forces of many regions, men, women, and children, mo- 

 bilized in cycles of movement that synchronize with the 

 seasons and the plant. 



The cotton year begins with January. By Christmas 

 the cotton has been sold, the landlord and tenant have 

 settled, the fertilizer has been paid for, and the supply 

 merchant has balanced his bill. If the season has been a 

 failure, the tenant may be informed that he owes, say, 



