300 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



amount and area of crop dictated by the overseer, the cotton picked, 

 ginned, and baled under supervision, the corn harvested and housed, 

 the produce divided, the indebtedness deducted, and the balance 

 turned over without a word on the part of the cropper. 



"Mules are kept in a common lot simply to insure good feed and 

 care, and to prevent their being ridden at night or on Sundays and 

 holidays by the negro. When the cropper's lot is at some distance 

 from the mule lot and he is a reasonably careful man, the mule re- 

 mains in his charge from Monday morning until Friday night or 

 Saturday noon, when it is brought back again to the mule lot. This 

 one item of plantation management has been a source of great saving 

 both in efficient work and good 'work stock to the planter and fruitful 

 cause of the change from share to fixed rent on the part of the negro." 



" The cropper," often called " halves " in the upland counties, 

 is usually found working on a verbal contract with a small land- 

 owner or a credit merchant who has a large number of farms in 

 his possession. If a merchant is his landlord, he is under super- 

 vision from March to December. " We oversee all our share 

 hands," said a Holly Springs merchant who owns thousands of 

 acres in Marshall and Lafayette Counties, " we don't ' suggest ' 

 or ' stipulate ' we ' dictate ' what crops they shall raise, and 

 where they shall raise them. We require cotton mostly, but 

 we insist that they raise sufficient corn and fodder to feed our 

 mules during the winter season, from January i to April i, 

 when we keep them in our own lots." The supervision is not 

 nearly so close as on the large plantation ; a " riding boss " gets 

 around to each farm two or three times a week and notes the 

 needs and condition of the crop. But the share hand makes 

 his own hours of labor, has command of the mule furnished him, 

 and is really very much freer to come and go, to work and "lay 

 off ' ' than the cropper of the bottom lands. When the landlord is 

 a small owner, or lives at some distance, the oversight is still 

 less. The land is less fertile, more must be tilled to make a 

 fair crop, the tools furnished are less modern than those of the 

 large planter, the mules are less valuable, and the resulting culti- 

 vation is very poor. Many owners live in town some miles distant 

 from their lands and take very little care of the share hand's crop. 



