36 
COTTON 
towns, as a result of the depression in cotton prices. 
Sir Guilford Molesworth estimates that between 
1872 and 1894 prices of general commodities fell 
50 per cent., while cotton prices declined 70 per cent. 
With the turn in the tide in prices, one now finds 
abundant evidence of a similar turn in the tide of 
migration. 
negro's importance in cotton production prob- 
ably OVERESTIMATED 
As to the negro in cotton production there are 
probably conflicting impressions and delusions. "A 
regular 'cottontot' " as he has been called, the negro, 
the mule, and the cotton patch are inseparably- 
linked together in the public mind. In 1899 little 
more than half of the Southern white farmers grew 
cotton, while 84 per cent, of the negroes were faith- 
ful to their favorite staple. 
And yet it is more than likely that the 
average reader has overestimated the negro's 
importance as a factor in cotton-growing. 
It is so picturesque to have the black negro 
in the white cotton field that in about ninety- 
nine per cent, of our book, magazine, and 
tourist pictures it is the son of Ham and not the 
white man who is laboring with the fleecy staple. 
As a result of all this, the average Northern reader 
would probably be surprised to learn of hundreds 
of thousands of small white farmers with their fam- 
ilies who make cotton from planting to picking al- 
most or entirely without negro labor. On many 
farms a negro is never employed; on many others, 
negroes are called in only for a few days' work in 
the height of the busy season. 
