494 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



agree that it is an absolute more than a relative poverty. The 

 farm tenants of the South, mostly negroes, are in the lowest 

 depths of poverty, although without any extraordinary industry 

 they could become owners of small farms. The Southern farm 

 conditions may be concisely described by the following extract 

 from a paper prepared by the writer : 1 



Before the Civil War the agricultural land of the South was owned and 

 cultivated in large areas by white planters, who were wealthy and independent. 

 Their purchases and sales were made through agents and brokers, whose 

 accounts showed balances in favor of the planters sufficient to meet all pur- 

 chases made in their behalf and all drafts made by them for cash. When a 

 planter wanted sugar, coffee, clothing for slaves, and other supplies that could 

 not be produced on the plantation, they were bought by the agent and their 

 cost charged against the balance in his hands remaining from sales of cotton 

 or other products. 



A devastating and exhausting war, in which nearly all of the able-bodied 

 white men of the South were engaged, made an immediate and radical change 

 in the agricultural system of that region. Large plantations could not be 

 cultivated as of yore for want of equipment, and a subdivision into tenancies 

 was the only course. The ex-slaves were still there, unprovided, as many of 

 their former masters were, with food sufficient to last until the harvesting of 

 the next year's crops. 



So it happened that tenant farming largely replaced the old system. 

 Farmers who owned the farm that they cultivated, and landlords alike, had to 

 obtain from merchants the supplies of food, clothing, and farm equipment 

 that were needed, and these on credit, giving in return pledges of the crop to 

 come, out of which the debts must be paid. The tenants, even less prepared 

 to choose, adopted the same system, and lived on their interest in the future 

 crop. . . . Every crop of cotton is mostly consumed before it is harvested ; 

 and after the harvest the farmer, owner, or tenant has to place a lien on the 

 next year's crop, often before the seed goes into the ground. . . . 



The agricultural land of the cotton states has little sale. Merchants will not 

 accept it as security for debt unless they are compelled to do so. when crop, 

 mules, cattle, and other personal property are insufficient. This is one 

 reason why mortgages on Southern farm land are so few. The blacks prefer 

 a tenancy to selling their labor for wages ; and in some regions, at least, the 

 white owners who cultivate their farms find that only the inferior laborers can 

 be hired because the superior ones prefer tenancies. As the planters become 

 independent of merchants they are unfriendly to these tenancies, but. in some 

 instances, have to grant very small ones in order to hold the services of the 



1 Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, September, 

 1893. 



