THE COUNTRY STORE 455 



been harmful to farmers. In no part of the country have 

 local merchants developed a more vicious system of agri- 

 cultural credit than they have in the South. It has been 

 the custom of the storekeepers of this section to advance 

 corn and bacon and such other produce as the poor farmers 

 needed, expecting to be paid from the proceeds of the 

 cotton crop. Cotton in the South is the main money crop, 

 and this crop is often mortgaged to the storekeeper. The 

 farmer in consequence is obliged to get his produce from 

 the man who holds the mortgage and is further required 

 to plant cotton to the exclusion of other crops. The evils 

 of this one-crop system naturally multiply, the land becom- 

 ing poorer and poorer. Diversified farming to the extent 

 of raising corn and bacon is discouraged by the local mer- 

 chants for the obvious reason that the raising of these 

 necessities would decrease their trade, since corn and bacon 

 are the chief articles advanced by the merchants. For 

 years one of the chief handicaps to a better agricultural 

 life in the South has been this baneful type of credit. 



In justice to the local merchants it must be said, how- 

 ever, that it is often necessary for them to supervise the 

 type of farming out of sheer self-defense on account of the 

 fact that some of the farmers are thriftless and lightly re- 

 gard their financial obligations. 



It has been discovered in North Dakota, from a ques- 

 tionnaire sent to 54 hardware dealers supplying goods to 

 farmers, that only 13 per cent pay cash and 87 per cent 

 ask for credit; that most of the transactions are book 

 transactions, and that the average account runs over a year, 

 or more exactly 12.37 months. The average rate of inter- 

 est on the notes held by these dealers against the farmers is 

 10.26 per cent. It often happens if a crop fails and the 

 farmer is unable to pay the principal, the dealers must keep 

 the account open for another year. While the country 



