38 COTTON 



Let us look for a minute at our typical negro 

 tenant. He moves in December to a new farm, we 

 will say f or he has a roving instinct that prevents 

 his remaining long at any place. He probably 

 rents horse, land and tools from the farm owner, 

 taking half the crop for his labor, and the farmer 

 stands his security for supplies at the nearest store. 

 Or he may rent land only, paying one-fourth the 

 crop for the land, and mortgage his unplanted 

 crop to the merchant for advance supplies. At 

 any rate, the negro's recklessness, coupled with the 

 exorbitant "time prices" charged, leads him perhaps 

 to buy more than his crop pays for so that the mer- 

 chant's reckoning when the negro brings in his 

 three or four bales of cotton in the fall, has been 

 pretty accurately set forth in the popular couplet: 



" Naught's a naught, figger's a figger, 



All for the white man, and none for the nigger." 



Heretofore it has been true in most cases per- 

 haps that the negro actually ended the year owing 

 the merchant a balance on the year's supplies the 

 merchant not allowing the balance, however, to be- 

 come more than just large enough to insure the 

 negro's becoming his bondservant for another year. 



If, however, the negro finds himself burdened 

 with an unexpected cash surplus after paying his 

 debts, he probably relieves the burden aforesaid by 

 buying an organ (which no member of his family 

 can play) or a calendar clock (the dates of which 

 he can barely read) or a magnificent range (on 

 which his wife will experiment with side meat and 

 corn bread until she becomes disgusted and goes 

 back to the family fire-place) . 



