40 COTTON 



to towns and mortgages became almost as common 

 as they were in the West in the days of low-priced 

 corn. Ten-cent cotton then seemed an iridescent 

 dream, and men talked of it as the feature of some 

 Golden Age gone never to return. 



CHANGES RESULTING FROM HIGH-PRICED COTTON 



Of course, with the coming of higher prices for 

 cotton, important changes are taking place. The 

 mortgage and the crop lien, with all except the 

 hopelessly shiftless class, are disappearing like snow 

 before a summer sun unless we except the mort- 

 gage given by the aspiring tenant in his ambition 

 to become a land-owner himself. 



As to the future/ one must not predict too lightly, 

 for it is easy to see that the present high price of 

 cotton will make itself felt not in one direction only, 

 but in counter currents. 



As one result, more tenants wish to buy lands 

 for themselves; as another result, land is increasing 

 in value so that it requires greater savings to buy 

 it. On the whole, however, it is now relatively easier 

 to become one's own landlord, and with high prices 

 the tenant class is likely to decrease. 



As one result, too, more people are attracted by 

 the old plantation system; as another result, labor- 

 ers find it so profitable to work for themselves that 

 labor is much more expensive than it used to be. 

 But as the negro works better in groups, the large 

 plantation has at least this advantage in its struggle 

 to reassert itself. 



With high prices then, the one sure thing 

 whether the proportion of tenants increase or de- 

 crease, whether the plantation system decline or 



