THE COTTON CULTURE COMPLEX 297 



as social heritages they may persist as habits of thought 

 even after they have ceased to be useful. 



Another factor which must be kept in mind is that of 

 individual Tariations within the cotton culture complex. 

 It is not part of the thesis of the cotton culture complex 

 to maintain that cotton growers are equally inclined, for 

 instance, to attitudes of speculation or non-cooperation. 

 It will be found, however, that with respect to many of 

 these traits the one-horse cotton farmers, the croppers, 

 and tenants are more nearly standardized. In analyzing 

 the cotton culture complex we are attempting to state in 

 terms of cultural anthropology the problem of the psy- 

 chological equipment of the human factors in cotton cul- 

 ture. 3 In so far as the student of contemporary culture 

 has access to economic statistics and to written expres- 

 sions of attitudes, he may be regarded as on a footing 

 equally secure with the anthropologist studying a tribe 

 which preserves no written records. 



Among the most obvious of the material culture traits 

 associated with cotton are the food habits of its growers. 

 It has been shown that the immense amount of man labor 

 in planting, chopping, and picking cotton comes at times 

 which interfere with the cultivation of other southern 

 crops. Consequently, the family on the one-horse cotton 

 farm has been "driven by compulsion to the most efficient 

 of all the foodstuffs that can be made to suffice." 4 Corn 

 is suited to the southern climate, as it is an efficient pro- 

 ducer of cereal carbohydrates. Its dietary properties are 

 similar to those of wheat except that, since its proteid 



3 See Clark Wissler, Man and Culture, pp. 47-99, for succinct 

 statements of concepts acceptable to anthropologists. 



4 W. J. Spillman in Farm Income and Farm Life, ed. Sanderson, 

 p. 194. 



