SOIL DEPLETION 87 



in the land and move from year to year in the 

 vain hope of better luck. The average income of 

 the tenant farmer family growing cotton is about 

 $150 a year; and the family usually does not 

 raise its poultry, meat, fruit, vegetables, or 

 bread-stuffs. The landlords in large sections are 

 little better off than the tenants. The price of the 

 product is manipulated by speculators. The 

 tenant farmer, and even the landlord, is preyed 

 upon by other interests and is practically power- 

 less. The effect of the social stratification into 

 landlord, tenant, and money-lending merchant, 

 still further complicates a situation that in some 

 regions is desperate and that demands vigorous 

 treatment. 



The recent years of good prices for cotton have 

 enabled many farmers to get out of debt and to 

 be able to handle their own business. These 

 farmers are then free to begin a new system of 

 husbandry. The problems still remain, however, 

 of how to help the man who is still in bondage. 



While these conditions are specially marked 

 in the cotton-growing states, they are arising in 

 all regions of a single-crop system, except, 

 perhaps, in the case of fruit regions and vege- 



