308 HUMAN FACTORS IN COTTON CULTURE 



while he can. To fix fences, clear land, stop gulleys from 

 washing, to repair a shed, or shingle a roof is from his 

 viewpoint a foolish waste of time and energy. From this 

 attitude it may be only a step to the use of fences for 

 fire wood. Much of the shiftlessness of southern tenants, 

 regarded in this light, is a self -defensive adjustment. 



Mobility furnishes a closely related attitude of tenants 

 growing out of a lack of attachment to the farms which 

 they have cultivated. In almost any region the form of 

 share rent set by custom can take no adequate account 

 of the variations which exist in the fertility of cotton 

 producing soils in a given area. Variations in character 

 of landlords also exist. Having nothing to lose, the tenant 

 is easily led to move by a desire to secure better land, or 

 to find a more agreeable landlord. Poor housing, inferior 

 educational facilities and health conditions may be re- 

 garded as additional factors inciting to mobility. There 

 is always the chance that the tenant may find a better 

 place for no greater expenditure. Let him move a number 

 of times, and mobility itself tends to become a habit ; the 

 renter has then acquired the reputation of being a shift- 

 less, roving tenant. A study by the Department of Agri- 

 culture in 1922 estimated that there was a shifting of 

 occupants on 19 per cent of all farms in the United 

 States, 27.7 per cent of tenants and 6 per cent of owners 

 shifting. In eight cotton states, however, 30 to 40 per 

 cent of all farms showed a change of occupants. "White 

 croppers reported much shorter average periods of occu- 

 pancy than colored croppers," ranging from a third of 

 a year to a year and a half. 14a 



14 aDept. of Agriculture Yearbook, 1923, pp. 590, 595. Kentucky, 

 a state of tobacco tenancy, also showed a farm mobility of from 

 30 to 40 per cent. 



