THE COTTON CULTURE COMPLEX 315 



stock, and a living, and becomes a first charge upon the 

 industry. 



No matter how inefficient his cultural practices, some 

 cotton can be grown. No matter how poor the grade and 

 texture, cotton always brings a price. The ease of cotton 

 culture has made for the survival of inefficient men. "Any 

 fool can grow cotton," is a saying heard all over the 

 South. A leading citizen of North Carolina used to de- 

 clare: "I wish it was harder to grow cotton. Then there 

 would be some money in it. As it is now, any fool nigger 

 with a bull yearlin' can make cotton." l3 The bull yearling 

 is a thing of the past, but farmers continue to neglect 

 the cultivation of the crop, to leave it to discolor, un- 

 picked in the field, or unstored subject to country dam- 

 age. The very methods of bagging, baling, and sampling 

 would not be tolerated in an organized business. The 

 southern cotton bale is the worst packaged commodity in 

 modern commerce. It has been allowed so to remain simply 

 because it is arranged that the damage and the tare are 

 deducted from the sellers, the farmers, or the original 

 shippers, and they, the least organized, can do nothing 

 to change the practice. 



In modern industry improvements in technique spread 

 by a kind of cultural diffusion. An advance in the process- 

 ing of steel soon spreads to all steel mills. It is not neces- 

 sary that steel workers understand or even know of the 

 new technique. Their need is only the "strong back and 

 the weak mind." Technical experts attend to the installa- 

 tion of new processes, and executives authorize the pur- 

 chase of patent rights. In agriculture every small farmer 

 is his own executive and technical expert. David R. Coker 



23 J. Russell Smith, North America, p. 244. 



