CHAPTER IV 



Sonthem Agriculture Needs Farm AihrmIs 



THE ONE-CROP IDEA 



For years the Southern farmer has realized that 

 something is wrong with the agriculture of his sec- 

 tion. The trouble began a good many years ago 

 along the Atlantic seaboard when the soil which 

 had been brought under cultivation by the early 

 settlers of that region began to yield smaller re- 

 turns of cotton and tobacco each year, until the 

 crop harvested from the land would scarcely pay 

 for the labor and expense necessary to produce the 

 crop. Later, a similar discontent arose in the 

 enormous southern empire which stretches away 

 to the west, and extends practically to the Rio 

 Grande river. In part of this region, the trouble 

 came also from soil depletion, with its attendant 

 necessity for abandoning the old fields and bring- 

 ing new lands into cultivation; in other parts, it 

 came from the inroads of crop pests, notably the 

 boll weevil, in its destructive attack upon the 

 cotton crop. Whatever was the specific agency 

 which brought about unprofitable agricultural con- 

 ditions, the trouble has always been traceable to 

 the big underlying principle of southern agricul- 

 ture, namely, the one-crop system. Ever since the 

 days of the civil war, the South has staked its agri- 

 cultural welfare upon a single-crop basis. In some 

 sections this crop has been cotton, in others to- 

 bacco, and in still others rice or sugar cane, but the 

 principle has been the same — that of expending 



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