HUMAN ELEMENTS IN COTTON 275 



Southern farmers, without training in the schools, have 

 risen by virtue of sheer physical labor to landownership. 

 The lack of education is, however, likely to be reflected 

 in poor cultural standards and inadequate care of the 

 soil. The following case comes from Tennessee: 



Mr. Watkins, twenty years ago, began renting land and 

 growing cotton. He is one of the hardest of workers, in a 

 physical sense, but illiterate. He lives at home; buying little 

 or none of meat, lard, corn, preserves, canned goods, vege- 

 tables, fruits, chickens, eggs, beef, etc. He raises all this 

 at home. He wears denims and so does his family. All the 

 family worked at the home and in the fields. Altho unscien- 

 tific in his methods he had lots of good conservative ideas 

 about farming and crops. He always has grown plenty of 

 feed crops for the farm work stock. He cannot read or write, 

 but hard common sense earned in the school of experience 

 is his chief asset in business methods. Financially, he was 

 poor, but always a shrewd but honest trader. His earnings 

 he invested in small tracts of land until now he owns about 

 500 acres with a comfortable home, gin, saw mill and grist 

 mill on it. He buys, sells and trades livestock the entire year 

 in addition to farming. He has been very liberal with those 

 who helped him make and save. He has given each son and 

 daughter 50 acres to begin on as they marry. 



The worst of this story is that Mr. Watkins is a soil 

 miner; taking off crop after crop and putting back nothing, 

 and his land is showing it. It also is washing badly due to 

 lack of terracing and proper drainage. Land is cheap here, 

 but is broken and somewhat eroded. About $15.00 to $20.00 

 per acre is the prevailing price of farm land. Approximately 

 % to % tillable land is the average. It produces from % 

 to 1 bale per acre, depending on fertilization and methods 

 used. But it takes a real manager to make a profit at it. 

 Mr. Watkins needs the help of the County Agent badly and 



