190 HUMAN FACTORS IN COTTON CULTURE 



Not one word is said in private conference with the farmers 

 about reduction of cotton acreage. 24 



It may be that the vested interest in cotton culture 

 is more apparent than real. If the change were made to 

 a well-rounded system of diversified agriculture with cot- 

 ton as a cash crop, the supply stores and purveyors of 

 credit would likely find a place in the economic organiza- 

 tion equally remunerative because less hazardous. But, 

 like the introduction of machinery, the adoption of a 

 new agricultural economy would cause a shock resulting 

 in the maladjustment of many economic units. Since 

 changes in industrial organization are always engineered 

 by those in possession of the credit facilities, to expect 

 croppers, tenants, or even small owners to carry out an 

 adequate program of diversification is to reproach them 

 for not being able to lift themselves by their own boot- 

 straps. The change when it comes will have to be engi- 

 neered from above by bankers, landlords, and supply 

 merchants. A general change in the cotton system would 

 involve a social crisis such as a continued depression in 

 the cotton market, or a withdrawal of cheap tenant labor 

 as has occurred in some areas since the Negro migra- 

 tions. Such an adjustment would result from continued 

 loss to supply merchants and landlords ; it would be pain- 

 ful and of long duration. 



Many southern thinkers are coming to feel that the 

 break-up of the plantations into small owned farms offers 

 the only chance for diversification. The plantation with 

 its organized supervision is the more efficient producer of 

 cotton, but it does not provide for the home living from 



24 T. N. Jones of Tyler, Texas, in an open letter to Dallas Newt,, 

 Feb. 17, 1928. 



