182 HUMAN FACTORS IN COTTON CULTURE 



balance on the right side of your factor's ledger, on which 

 he will be glad to pay you interest until you are ready to 

 use it in enhancing the value of your estate by improvements, 

 or in giving a lift to a worthy son who has been made a man 

 by the example of a father who knew how to make available 

 what providence had vouchsafed him. 



No triumph has been so confidently announced and so 

 often delayed as the expected triumph of diversification 

 in southern agriculture. The cotton crop lien system was 

 thought to have been destroyed by the crop failure of 

 1868 which ruined so many furnishing merchants. Again 

 in 1873 and in 1881 at the first Atlanta Exposition, 

 speakers announced that the problem of southern agricul- 

 ture was solved. Low prices from 1890 to 1894 led many 

 merchants to refuse to grant further credit on cotton. 19 

 In every case the optimistic prophecies came to nought. 

 In recent years the boll weevil invasion and the demand 

 for foodstuffs imposed by the World War were thought 

 by some to have changed southern agriculture beyond the 

 possibility of relapse. 20 



In proof of the triumph of diversification, total figures 

 on production are usually given. These, however, are not 

 fitted to serve as an adequate index of diversification in 

 that they tend to distribute the products of specialized 

 fruit, truck, dairy, and poultry farms among the general 

 averages and thus to make it appear that production on 

 each farm has increased. Thus to say that South Caro- 

 lina has exported $100,000 worth of poultry cannot be 

 taken to mean that poultry in excess of normal consump- 

 tion on South Carolina farms has been produced. It may 



19 Hammond, The Cotton Industry, pp. 157-68. 



20 See Chap. III. 



