258 HUMAN FACTORS IN COTTON CULTURE 



work was concerned. The next year the deficit was taken up 

 by another planter named Griffin. At the end of that year 

 he was worse off than at the end of the former year. The 

 Negro came to Mr. L. O. Borden, the original employer, 

 last Sunday and told him of his troubles. Mr. Borden ex- 

 pects him to go back to work as a cropper, but has no doubt 

 that as soon as he pays out of debt and saves enough to 

 buy an animal he will again resort to renting. His observa- 

 tion is that after an unusually good crop year, it is very 

 difficult to get labor for the following year. The Negroes 

 have all made money and do not want to work again as 

 croppers. 6 



A typical case of a tenant farmer using ineffectual 

 methods of cultivation sanctioned by folklore comes from 

 Tennessee : 



An old Negro farmer, John Blake, renting 20 acres of 

 good second bottom land, has lived with his present land- 

 lord 20 years. He now owns two "plug" mules, two cows, 

 three hogs, one calf, a dozen or so chickens, a wagon and 

 a few plows and tools. He owes the landlord $400.00. He 

 has no fence around his yard or garden. He builds a split 

 paling fence in the spring and uses it for kindling fires in 

 the winter. He does not begin to clear his land of stalks or 

 to plow and prepare it until April 1st, although our average 

 planting date here is Apr. 20th to May 5th. 



He plants his cotton, corn, and garden at certain periods 

 of the moon. He is a close observer of the signs of the 

 Zodiac, and their symbols all have a superstitious meaning 

 to him. He would not violate these if he had to go hungry 

 as a penalty for so doing. Thus it follows that his crops are 

 planted on a hastily prepared seed bed, and through pro- 



6 Quoted in R. P. Brooks, The Agrarian Revolution in Georgia 

 1865-1912, p. 61. 



