314 HUMAN FACTORS IN COTTON CULTURE 



is thus a culture complex. It may even serve to determine 

 income as in the case of a cotton mill worker who makes 

 enough to live on in four days at the mill and lays off the 

 other two. In such a case participation in another cul- 

 ture by raising his desires should raise his income. The 

 manager of a large Arkansas plantation owned by Frank 

 O. Lowden, writes of the cotton laborer: 



He has nothing, wants nothing, expects nothing, does not 

 try to have anything but does waste and destroy any and 

 everything. He is wild for money, but when he gets it, it is 

 not worth five cents on the dollar to buy his needs. That is 

 for waste, his needs are bought on credit. 



The cotton farmer is isolated from patterns of social 

 culture by his life in the open country, by his economic 

 status, by his lack of educational advantages, and by the 

 doctrine of native inferiority. Thus because of social 

 cleavage, we have another vicious circle: low economic 

 status and the rift in culture. 



If the risks of failure are great and the standards of 

 living are low, the question may be asked, how do almost 

 ten million southern men, women, and children manage to 

 remain in business as cotton growers? Why do not the 

 inefficient producers fail and pass out of the picture? The 

 answer is that the very nature of cotton culture seems 

 to make for the survival of inadequate farmers. The very 

 nature of cotton tenancy in the South attracts men who 

 otherwise could not enter farming. The tenant has no 

 expenses of upkeep of land or buildings. He pays no 

 taxes. He spends little or no time improving the farm- 

 stead or making it attractive. He is invited to enter the 

 field of cotton production, is furnished a house, work 



