290 HUMAN FACTORS IN COTTON CULTURE 



in the life of Ben R. Tillman, one-time governor of and 

 senator from South Carolina. 33 He said : 



I cleared money up to 1881 and bought land and mules 

 right along. In that year I ran thirty plows, bought guano, 

 rations, etc., as usual, and the devil tempted me to buy a 

 steam engine and other machinery, amounting to two thou- 

 sand dollars, all on credit. My motto was "It takes money to 

 make money, and nothing risk nothing have." To have been 

 entirely free from debt would have made me feel like a "kite 

 without a tail," so I struck out boldly into deep water. Ben 

 Jonson says: 



"All men are mortal 

 And do have visions." 



I had mine and they were rose-hued. Uninterrupted success 

 had made me a fool. I was like the "little wanton boys who 

 swim on bladders"; but I did not know how much of a 

 "bladder" cotton was on land impoverished of vegetable mat- 

 ter in dry summer. 



His biographer continues: 



The investments were followed by a "dreadful drought" 

 and fearful losses before he was aware, thrust him into the 

 "Red Sea." An unwise optimism led him to attempt to re- 

 trieve his fortunes by additional investments. But the result 

 was the purchase of provisions from merchants at "sickening 

 prices," continued crop failures in 1883, 1884, and 1885, a 

 pocketbook "like Bill Arp's when an elephant had trod upon 

 it," and the forced sale of much of the land he had bought. 



The management of a plantation is a difficult task 

 calling for technical knowledge of cotton culture and tact 

 in managing the human factors. The cases which follow 

 show how, of four planters in South Georgia, two were 



33 Simkins, The Tillman Movement in South Carolina, pp. 61, 52. 



