36 COTTON 



towns, as a result of the depression in cotton prices. 

 Sir Guilford Molesworth estimates that between 

 1872 and 1894 prices of general commodities fell 

 50 per cent., while cotton prices declined 70 per cent. 

 With the turn in the tide in prices, one now finds 

 abundant evidence of a similar turn in the tide of 

 migration. 



NEGRO'S IMPORTANCE IN COTTON PRODUCTION PROB- 

 ABLY OVERESTIMATED 



As to the negro in cotton production there are 

 probably conflicting impressions and delusions. "A 

 regular 'cottontjot ' " as he has been called, the negro, 

 the mule, and the cotton patch are inseparably 

 linked together in the public mind. In 1899 little 

 more than half of the Southern white farmers grew 

 cotton, while 84 per cent, of the negroes were faith- 

 ful to their favorite staple. 



And yet it is more than likely that the 

 average reader has overestimated the negro's 

 importance as a factor in cotton-growing. 

 It is so picturesque to have the black negro 

 in the white cotton field that in about ninety- 

 nine per cent, of our book, magazine, and 

 tourist pictures it is the son of Ham and not the 

 white man who is laboring with the fleecy staple. 

 As a result of all this, the average Northern reader 

 would probably be surprised to learn of hundreds 

 of thousands of small white farmers with their fam- 

 ilies who make cotton from planting to picking al- 

 most or entirely without negro labor. On many 

 farms a negro is never employed; on many others, 

 negroes are called in only for a few days' work in 

 the height of the busy season. 



