ANALYSIS OF TOBACCO GEO WEES ' ASSOCIATION 35 



efforts in business and remain more loyal to their organizations 

 because the group spirit is more highly developed. In the Southern 

 States, the native whites are highly individualistic, and the people 

 are proud of the fact that infiltration of foreign-born farmers has 

 been practically negligible. In North Carolina, in 1920, only 7,099 

 persons out of a total population of over two and a half million were 

 foreign-born {11). Similar conditions prevail in the other two 

 States. This lack of cooperative experience and spirit no doubt re- 

 tards considerably any forward movement in the direction of cooper- 

 ative organization. 



The traditional psychological characteristics of farmers are 

 marked in these three States. In Virginia there seemed to be a 

 consensus of opinion that the nonsupport of cooperative associations 

 was due to the fact that farmers " were conservative, individualistic 

 and prone to be suspicious of the officers of their organization, and 

 of each other " (IS, p. 5). To these usual traits of farmer psychol- 

 ogy must be added the lack of cooperative experience and the lack 

 of education of a large part of the farming population in the South. 

 Within recent years the improvement of schools, the advent of motor 

 cars, the improvement of roads, and the building of suitable com- 

 munity centers have tended to break down these barriers of preju- 

 dice and individualism. These changes make for a more hopeful 

 future. 



Throughout the tobacco districts is found what might be called a 

 tobacco hierarchy, which has for its upper stratum the tobacco buy- 

 ers who represent the larger tobacco companies and warehouse own- 

 ers, and for its lower stratum the farmer friends of these people. 

 Many of the buyers and warehousemen are recruited from the farm 

 population or have formed friendships with the more influential 

 farmers in the different districts during the course of their associa- 

 tion with the tobacco-buying business. It is a well-known fact, at- 

 tested to by the Federal Trade Commission (12, p. 20), and many 

 public men in the South, that this leads to some discrimination in 

 the prices paid to farmers, usually at the expense of the less influen- 

 tial groups. The system of buying on average prices enables the 

 buyers to pay somewhat higher prices to those persons with whom 

 they are friends and to offset these high prices by lower prices paid 

 to other farmers. 



Just how far this practice prevails, it is impossible to tell, but this 

 study revealed that in some districts it was an important factor in 

 keeping many of the more influential farmers from joining the 

 Tobacco Growers' Cooperative Association. Undoubtedly such a 

 practice, if at all extensive, would tend to divide the farmers among 

 themselves and thus greatly weaken any effort towards united or 

 group action. 



Just how the presence of a large negro farming population influ- 

 enced the tobacco cooperative is difficult to say. The general feeling 

 was that it added to the difficulties because the colored farmers were, 

 on the whole, less willing to join the association and thereby added 

 to the supply of tobacco available on the loose-leaf auction floor. 



The characteristics of the negro population are undoubtedly an 

 important factor in the backwardness of the Southern States, espe- 



