66 BULLETIN 1269, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
The landlord in turn may hold the cotton for a higher price and take 
chances on collecting the unpaid balance. 
The cotton may be purchased at the time of ginning, at the time 
of settlement after harvest, or periodically during the harvest season. 
Occasionally, after accounts are paid, the tenant's share of the crop 
is given over to him and left at his disposal. 
When the tenant's cotton is sold* by the landlord, except on the 
less closely supervised plantations where the sale is conducted by 
mutual agreement, the sale is usually made at the time and place 
determined by the landlord. The reason given for this arbitrary 
procedure in handling the tenant's cotton, whether in buying or 
selling, is to protect the sale of the product so as to reduce to the 
minimum the tenant's debt for advances. Moreover, landlords can 
usually sell products more advantageously than tenants, owing to 
better understanding of grades and market conditions, and for this 
reason many tenants not only agree to the arrangement but often 
request the sale of their cotton by planters or responsible merchants. 
The tenant's cottonseed is usually bought by the landlord at the 
plantation gin as an offset to the cost of ginning and against advances 
made in the fall, and the customary profit taken by ginners is gen- 
erally expected by the landlord. 
Wnen cotton is assembled on the plantation, either by purchase or 
for the purpose of selling, the planter may sell on the local market or 
he may sell through selling factors and exporters in the larger cities. 50 
The usual practice of marketing cotton in lot quantities is practically 
the same as that of the local buyers. 
Tobacco marketing. — In the past, tobacco on the cotton plantation 
in the South Atlantic States has been sold at auction in local ware- 
houses at the time of harvest, according to the usual method of 
marketing " bright leaf" tobacco. Whether this was done in the 
landlord's name or the tenant's has not been considered material, 
since, prior to the recent coming into practice of cooperative market- 
ing, the same process has applied in any case. Under the cooperative 
plan of pooling the product, the function of marketing tobacco is 
left to the association, to which the landlord lends his cooperation to 
the extent of the product he controls. The same facts in general 
hold in the case of cotton marketing wherever cotton is marketed 
cooperatively. 
Rice marketing. — Rice, which is nearly always produced with wage 
labor on land owned or leased, is sold by lessees independently of 
the landowner according to prevailing customs. For many years 
rice has been marketed largely through some form of cooperation. 
Sugar-cane marketing. — Methods 01 marketing sugar cane on the 
plantation are so different from methods of other staple crops that 
they deserve particular attention. From the tenant's standpoint, 
two general methods prevail. If the landlord operates a refinery, he 
buys the tenant's cane for his refinery. If he has no refinery, he 
and the tenant sell jointly to the local refinery, as a rule. In either 
case, contracts for the purchase of the producer's cane are usually 
made early in the year. 
r, ° The term "factor" referred to here should not be confused with factor merchants who formerly ad- 
vanced credit to planters. The present day cotton factor, as a rule, merely advances credit in the process 
of selling, or acts as a commission merchant in marketing cotton. 
