SKETCH OF MODERN AGRICULTURE 107 



bankruptcy to the planters. This system of cotton production 

 proved expensive, and gradually it was replaced by the one which 

 still predominates throughout the greater part of the cotton 

 section, at least in the eastern half of it, namely, the growing 

 of cotton by negro tenant farmers on small tracts which they 

 rert on shares from the large landowners. This new system 

 preyed to be workable, and gradually cotton production began 

 to increase again until, by 1879, the crop exceeded that of 1860. 

 Under this system the negro tenant was in a somewhat peculiar 

 position. Though he was called a tenant, he was in a sense 

 only a hired man, who was paid a share of the crop instead of 

 fixed wages ; that is to say, he had little more independence 

 than a hired man. The owner of the land furnished the seed, 

 the tools, the mules, and the feed, and sometimes advanced 

 corn meal and bacon to the tenant. Gradually, however, there 

 appeared a better class of tenants, who. attained a little more 

 independence and became the owners of their mules and 

 implements, becoming, in fact, real tenants. 



Agricultural credit. Following this change in the method of 

 cotton production, there came certain other changes in the eco- 

 nomic and financial situation. A most vicious system of agri- 

 cultural credit was developed, mainly through the agency of the 

 local merchants. These merchants would undertake to advance 

 supplies to the farmer and receive their pay from the proceeds 

 of the cotton crop. In order to secure themselves they would 

 take a mortgage on the crop. This tended to put the farmer at 

 the mercy of the lender. He was almost compelled to buy his 

 supplies from the storekeeper who held the mortgage on his 

 crop, and the storekeeper would frequently dictate the amount 

 and character of the crop which the farmer was to grow. This 

 tended to accentuate the evils of the one-crop system and to 

 concentrate the energy of the farmer on cotton to the exclusion 

 of everything else. Though it would have been to the farmer's 



