164 HUMAN FACTORS IN COTTON CULTURE 



ily are instructed by the manager to follow a set routine. 

 While this practice in many instances makes for efficiency, 

 it is likely to go against the grain with many tenants. 

 Many of the white renters, for instance, are, with the 

 exception of good advice, left to shift for themselves. 



The supply merchant also exercises an amount of su- 

 pervision over "his farmers." Each Saturday trip to 

 town is an occasion for discussions of weather, markets, 

 and weevil, as well as for purchases of side meat, sugar, 

 flour, and cheap coffee. The relations are social as well 

 as economic, and it has been observed that the merchant 

 bestows more attentions upon his debtors than upon the 

 cash customers. Rough and ready jests mixed with re- 

 minders of a mortgage on a certain worthless mule, pre- 

 sumably blind, are exchanged. The Negroes seem to have 

 an uncanny sense of how far they dare to go in jest, and 

 many a loud laugh and "Yass sir, boss, that's sho' the 

 truth" enliven the country and small town store on 

 Saturday. 



Cotton is usually laid by about the first of August. 

 This means that cultivation has put the plant far ahead 

 of the weeds, and the farmer must now wait for the 

 chemistry of sun and soil to do its work. His hopes are 

 for dry hot days with moist hot nights, and in normal 

 times his hopes are answered, for this is the southern 

 climate that has made cotton a southern crop. It is al- 

 most a month until cotton picking begins, no other crops 

 are ready for harvest, and the cotton workers are free 

 for a time. In the country districts the summer term of 

 school may be in session, for when autumn comes the chil- 

 dren will be picking cotton. It is after the cotton is laid 

 by that protracted meetings are held all over the South. 



