192 HUMAN FACTORS IN COTTON CULTURE 



up, and the supply merchants had to take charge of them. 

 Many of the farms have been thrown out, and the landlords 

 are either somewhere in public work or renting themselves. 20 



The greatest changes made in the cotton system have 

 occurred in areas inhabited by white and black land own- 

 ers, intermingled, who have been aided by bankers. Live 

 stock, dairy cows, poultry have been purchased; cover 

 crops such as velvet beans, soy beans, cow peas and 

 lespedeza hay have been grown, and the acreage of cotton 

 has been reduced. By rotating so as to plant the cotton 

 each year on soil previously occupied by legumes, it has 

 been possible to increase the yield of cotton while re- 

 ducing its acreage. Studies by the Department of Agricul- 

 ture have shown that such intensive culture increases the 

 cost per acre of producing cotton but materially reduces 

 the cost per pound. The forcing methods of cultivation 

 are also the ones that have proved most effective against 

 the boll weevil. To such an extent is this true, a president 

 of a fertilizer company with fertilization and the weevil 

 on his mind said that successful cotton growing is tend- 

 ing to change from an extensive field type of cultivation 

 to an intensive garden type with a pharmaceutical de- 

 partment attached. 



MARKETING 

 The methods by which cotton is marketed 27 are inher- 



26 Letter from L. O. Crosby, Picayune, Miss., March 12, 1928. 



27 Dealing in cotton constitutes a definitely recognized profes- 

 sion in the South, employing a number of factors, brokers, dealers, 

 and cotton buyers. Around this trade surrounded by the hazards 

 of the market has grown up a set of attitudes which may be called 

 a speculative complex. The concern of the present discussion is 

 with the relation of the grower to the marketing of his product. 



