HOW THE COTTON FAKMER LIVES 235 



leaves out the ever-present fluctuations in yield and price. 



Morris Sheppard, 53 former United States Senator from 

 Texas, suggested in 1924 an estimate of the average 

 money income to the cotton grower for the sixty year 

 period since the Civil War. For that period he figured 

 the average yield of lint per cotton acre at 178 pounds, 

 the average farm price at 13 cents per pound, and the 

 average income per acre at approximately $23.05. Set- 

 ting the average cotton patch at seventeen acres, Shep- 

 pard estimated the average gross income at slightly less 

 than $400 for the whole farm family. The 1920 Census of 

 Agriculture showed the average cotton acreage per farm 

 reporting cotton to be 17.7 for the United States ; slightly 

 over fourteen acres for the Eastern Belt, about twelve 

 acres for the Gulf states, almost twenty-five acres for 

 the western states, and thirty-three acres for Texas. 



In this general way the amount of cash income may 

 be determined from the cotton acreage. Then the share 

 going to the producer may be estimated on the basis of 

 tenure: one-half to the cropper, two-thirds to three- 

 fourths to the share tenant, and all, less credit charges, 

 to the owner. We shall have more to say about the credit 

 charges later. 



Dr. E. C. Branson and J. A. Dickey M made a survey 

 of the money income of 329 farm operators in Chatham 

 County, North Carolina, for 1921. In this region of mid- 

 state Carolina, cotton and tobacco are the money crops, 

 while corn, wheat, oats, potatoes, milk and butter, poul- 

 try and pork are the homegrown staples of existence. 



63 "Who Gets the Cotton Money?" Country Gentleman, Aug. 23, 

 1924. 



64 Home and Farm Ownership, North Carolina Club Yearbook, 

 1921-22, pp. 59-99. 



