THE COTTON CULTURE COMPLEX 307 



Given as an added attitude, the fact that all cotton 

 growers, even the planters, are bulls on cotton who find 

 difficulty in realizing that high levels of prices are bound 

 to fall, and one has the improvidence of the southern cot- 

 ton grower. The standards of living are not only low 

 but shifting. The income of the cotton grower has its 

 peaks of high prices, but these peaks are not expected, 

 they are not planned for, and they do not always serve 

 to level up the general standard of living. Instead, they 

 serve oftentimes to gratify whims and vagaries of con- 

 sumption. The cotton farmer's income often just balances 

 his upkeep from the landlord or a supply store. He has 

 had nothing on which to exercise the virtue of thrift ; 

 and when his cotton crop brings him a larger money in- 

 come, he is likely to regard it as a windfall and treat 

 it accordingly. 



Two other sets of attitudes peculiar to southern cot- 

 ton and tobacco renters, have grown out of the conditions 

 of tenancy rather than of cotton cultivation. The fact 

 that they characterize an important number of cotton 

 growers makes these attitudes an integral element of the 

 cotton culture complex. The first attitude may be de- 

 scribed as the shiftless attitude of the renter toward the 

 place on which he lives. The common complaint of land- 

 lords is of houses allowed to go to ruin, fences torn down, 

 and lands lacerated by erosion. Law gives the tenant no 

 interest in his tenancy. A tenure of twenty years gives 

 the renter no more right to remain than a tenure of 

 twenty days. In this the American practice differs from 

 the English. In addition the law gives the tenant no claim 

 for improvements made. The tenant then does not look 

 forward to a future but only to a present use of the farm. 

 In self-defense his is the philosophy of get what he can 



