So PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



labor and share some of the social degradation that attaches 

 to slavery. The best cotton growing is now carried on by white 

 farmers who till their own farms, and there never was a time, 

 even during the period of slavery, when there were not a few 

 small neighborhoods of this type as oases in the general desert 

 of wasteful and inefficient slave cultivation. 



The almost complete exclusion of white labor from cotton 

 growing was by far the most important effect of slavery upon 

 American agriculture. Three other effects are commonly attrib- 

 uted to it. First, it is held responsible for the process of " land 

 killing," by which is meant the practice of growing a few crops 

 from a piece of land until its original virgin fertility was partially 

 exhausted and then abandoning it for a new and unexhausted tract. 

 It is doubtful, however, whether this practice was due more to 

 slavery than to the presence of indefinite supplies of new land. 

 If there is a field near by already fertilized by the accumulation 

 of ages of vegetable mold, it is not always profitable to incur the 

 expense of fertilizing an old field. It may be cheaper to move 

 to the new field. This may be shortsighted from the point of 

 view of the nation, but it is mere " business sense " from the 

 point of view of the individual farmer. The blame, therefore, 

 attaches to the nation as a whole, which permitted such a 

 system, and not to the individual. 



Second, slavery tended to concentrate cotton growing in large 

 plantations worked by gangs of slaves under supervision. Slave 

 labor, having no interest in its work, must of necessity be rigidly 

 supervised. One overseer or superintendent can supervise the 

 work of a gang as well as that of one or two. It would therefore 

 be poor economy, as a rule, to try to grow cotton with the labor 

 of one or two slaves in competition with plantations worked by 

 larger numbers. Third, the tools and implements used in South- 

 ern agriculture remained crude and heavy long after improve- 

 ments had been introduced in the North. 



