THE PRESENT COTTON SYSTEM 191 



the farm for its workers. The least changes toward di- 

 versification may be expected where the plantation or 

 absentee landlords prevail. Many of the landlords who 

 have been successful farmers "now reside in the towns, 

 expecting their tenants to do just as well as they did but 

 at the same time demanding more and more money from 

 the old place." 5 This of course means a concentration 

 on cotton and tobacco. A Mississippi Flood Director for 

 1927 writes of conditions in the Delta: 



Portions of this region have been given almost entirely to 

 the raising of cotton. No richer land can be found anywhere 

 than in the Mississippi Delta. Areas that planted 100 per 

 cent cotton are mortgaged to such an extent that it is a 

 question as to whether more than a very few will be able 

 to survive the late overflow. It was necessary for the Red 

 Cross to feed their tenants for almost twelve months, and 

 at this time many of them are experiencing much difficulty 

 in obtaining credit. There are few planters in the Delta 

 who raise their own feedstuff for their hogs and cattle suffi- 

 cient to supply their farms. Invariably when you strike such 

 a farmer he has money in the bank and seldom do you find 

 such a farmer with a mortgage on his farm. 



I have seen many farmers in the hill district go out and 

 clear land, and establish a new farm, and apparently they 

 seem to be making money for the first two or three or four 

 years. While the land is fresh it would yield three-quarters 

 of a bale to a bale per acre. Their tenants are able to pay 

 out, but after five, six, seven, and eight years the lands begin 

 to fail. It would take three to four acres to make a bale, 

 and after having planted their farms constantly in cotton, 

 most of the landlords lost their farms, had to give them 



25 Charles E. Gibbons, "Farm Children in Oklahoma," Child Labor 

 Bulletin, May 1918, p. 40. 



