The end of Reconstruction found the tenant system and the “crop lien” firmly fastened upon the South. The plantation system had broken down since the owner no longer had slaves to work his land, capital to pay wages, or credit on which to borrow the necessary funds. Many of the great plantations had already been broken up and sold, while others, divided into tracts of convenient size, had been rented to white or negro tenants. What had been one plantation became a dozen farms, a score, or even more. Men who owned smaller tracts found it difficult to hire or to keep labor, and many retained only the land which they or their sons could work and rented the remainder of their farms. This system is still characteristic of Southern agriculture.

Few of the landless whites and practically none of the negroes had sufficient money reserve to maintain themselves for a year and hence no capital to apply to the land on which they were tenants. Yet the land was there ready to produce, the labor was there, more or less willing to work if it could but live while the crop was growing. The country merchant had already assumed the office of banker to the tenant farmer, and this position he still holds in spite of all efforts to dislodge him. His customers include not only tenants but some landowners, white or black. They buy from him, during the months before the crop is gathered, the food, clothing, and other supplies necessary for existence, and as many simple luxuries as he will permit. When the crops are gathered, he buys them, or at least the share of them belonging to the tenant, subtracts the store accounts, and turns over the surplus, if any, to the farmers.

Unlike other bankers, the merchant charges no interest upon the capital he advances, but he is paid nevertheless. For every pound of bacon, meal, and flour, for every gallon of molasses, for every yard of cloth, for every plug of tobacco or tin of snuff which the customer consumes during the spring and summer, an advanced price is charged to him on the merchant’s books. With thousands of these merchants selling to hundreds of thousands of farmers over a wide area, it is of course impossible to state the average difference between credit and cash prices. Investigations made in different sections show a wide variation depending upon custom, competition, the reliability and industry of the customer, the amount of advances, and the length of credit. Since a large part of the advances are made during the six, or even four months before the crops are gathered, the difference between cash and credit prices amounts often to an interest charge of forty to one hundred per cent or even more a year. These advanced credit prices, and consequently the high interest rates, may be paid not only upon food, clothing, and other personal goods, but also, occasionally, upon tools, farming implements, fertilizers, and work animals.

The merchant is supposed to be protected against loss by the institution of the crop lien and the chattel mortgage. By one or the other of these the farmer is enabled to mortgage his growing, or even his unplanted crops, his farming implements, his cattle, and horses, if he owns them. If he is a landowner, the land may be included in a mortgage as additional security. The crop is conveyed to the mortgagee as in an ordinary land mortgage, and the tenant cannot hold back his crop for a better price, or seek a better market for any part of it, until all his obligations have been settled. Disposing of mortgaged property is a serious offense and no one not desirous of abetting fraud will buy property which he has reason to suspect has been mortgaged. As a result of this system in some sections, years ago, nine-tenths of the farmers were in debt. Undoubtedly the prices credited for the crops have been less than might have been obtained in a market absolutely free. If the crops a farmer raises bring less than the advances, the balance is carried over to the next year and no other merchant will give credit to a man whose accounts with his former creditor are not clear. In the past the signing of one of these legal instruments has often reduced the farmer to a state of peonage.

Naturally the merchant who has begun to extend credit, sometimes before the seed is in the ground, has a voice in deciding what crops shall be planted. The favorite crops in the past have been tobacco and cotton, particularly the latter. Both contain comparatively large value in small bulk; both can be stored conveniently, with little danger of deterioration; neither is liable to a total failure; a ready market for both is always available; and neither tempts the thief until it is ripe. Only winter wheat, sown in the fall and reaped in early summer, is grown in the South, and the crop is somewhat uncertain. A tenant who has secured advances on a crop of wheat during the fall and winter may easily move to an adjoining county or State in the spring and plant cotton there. Half a crop of corn may easily be stolen, eaten by animals, or consumed by the tenant while still green. A further reason for not encouraging the production of corn and wheat is the profit the merchant makes by the sale of imported flour, meal, and bacon. Cotton is therefore almost the only product of sections admirably suited to the growing of corn or to the raising of hogs. The country merchant has helped to keep the South poor.

Yet in spite of the apparently exorbitant percentage of profit, few country merchants become rich. In a year of drouth, or of flood, many of their debtors may not be able to pay their accounts, even though their intentions are of the best. Others may prove shiftless and neglect their fields. Still others may be deliberately dishonest and, after getting as large advances as possible, abandon their crops leaving both the landowner and the merchant in the lurch. These creditors must then either attempt to harvest the crop by hired labor, with the hope of reducing their loss, or else charge the whole to profit and loss. The illness or death of the debtor may also prevent the proper cultivation of the crop he has planted. For these different reasons every country merchant is likely to accumulate many bad debts which may finally throw him into bankruptcy. Those who succeed are exceptionally shrewd or very fortunate.

The relation of the tenant to his landlord varies in different parts of the South. Many different plans of landholding have been tried since 1865, and traces of all of them may be found throughout the length and breadth of the South. One was a modified serfdom, in which the tenant worked for the landlord four or five days in every week for a small wage. In addition he had a house, firewood, and several acres of land which he might cultivate on his own account. According to another plan, the landlord promised to pay a fixed sum of money to the laborer when the crop was gathered. Both plans had their origin primarily in the landlord’s poverty, but were reenforced by the tenant’s unreliability. These plans, as well as combinations of these with some others to be mentioned, have now practically died out. There remain the following alternatives: land may be rented for a fixed sum of money per acre, to be paid when the crops are sold, or for a fixed quantity of produce, so many bushels of corn or so many pounds of cotton being paid for every acre; or, more commonly, land may be rented on some form of share tenancy by which the risk as well as the profit is shared by both tenant and landowner.

Share tenancy assumes various forms. In some sections a rough understanding grew up that, in the division of a crop, one-third was to be allotted to the land, one-third to live stock, seed, and tools, and one-third to labor. If the tenant brought nothing but his bare hands, he received only the share supposed to be due to labor; if he owned working animals and implements, he received in addition the share supposed to be due to them. This arrangement, modified in individual cases, still persists, especially where the tenants are white. As various forms of industrial enterprise have continued to draw labor from the farms, the share assigned to labor by this form of tenancy has increased until, in perhaps the greater part of the South and certainly in the cotton-growing sections, it is usually one-half.

The ordinary arrangement of share tenancy under which the negro in the cotton belt now works provides that the landowner shall furnish a cabin in which the family may live and an acre or two for a garden. In addition, working stock, implements, and seed are supplied by the owner of the land. Both tenant and owner share the cost of fertilizers if any are used, and divide equally the expenses of preparing the crop for market and the proceeds of the sale. This arrangement means, of course, that the capitalist takes the laborer into a real partnership. Both embark in a venture the deferred results of which are dependent chiefly upon the industry and good faith of the laborer. By a seeming paradox it is only the laborer’s unreliability which gives him such an opportunity, for if he were more dependable, the landowner would prefer in most cases to pay wages and take the whole of the crop. Because the average negro laborer cannot be depended upon to be faithful, he is given a greater opportunity, contrary to all ordinary moral maxims.

When the share tenant lives on the land he may be a part of two different systems. There are some large plantations over which the owners or managers exercise close supervision. The horses or, more generally, the mules are housed in large common stables or sheds and are properly looked after. Some attempt is made to see that tools and implements are kept in order. If the tenant falls behind in his work and allows his crop to be overrun with grass or is unable to pick the cotton as it opens, the owner hires help, if possible, and charges the cost against the tenant. In other words, the owner attempts to apply to agriculture some of the principles of industrial organization. The success of such attempts varies. The negro tenant generally resents close supervision; but on the other hand he enjoys the community life of a large plantation. In the end, in the majority of cases the personal equation determines whether the negro stays or moves.

At the other extreme is the landowner who turns over his land to the negro and hopes for some return. If the tenant is industrious and ambitious, the landowner gets something and is relieved of the trouble of supervision. Often, however, he finds at the end of the year that the mules have deteriorated from being worked through the day and driven or ridden over the country at night; the tools and implements are broken or damaged; and the fences have been used for firewood, though an abundant supply could have been obtained by a few hours’ labor. Very often the landlord’s share of the small crop will not really compensate him for the depreciated value of his property, for land rented without supervision is likely to decrease in fertility and to bring in meager returns.

A more successful arrangement between the two extremes is often seen in sections where the population is largely white and land is held in smaller tracts. Here a white farmer who owns more land than he or his sons can cultivate marks off a tract for a tenant, white or black, who may be said to work with his landlord. Both he and others of his family may work an occasional day for the landlord, receiving pay either in kind or in cash. Relations between such families often become close, and the tenant may remain on the property for years. In some sections there are numerous examples of what might be called permanent tenants. Sometimes such a tenant ultimately purchases the land upon which he has worked or other land in the neighborhood.

The plantation owner may be a merchant-landlord also and may furnish supplies to his tenants. He keeps only staple articles, but he may give an order on a neighboring store for those not in stock or may even furnish small sums of money on occasion. The tenants are not allowed to buy as much as they choose either in the plantation store or in the local store at the crossroads. At the beginning of the year the landlord or the merchant generally allows a credit ranging from fifty to two hundred dollars but rarely higher and attempts to make the tenant distribute the purchases over the whole period during which the crop is growing. If permitted, many, perhaps a large majority of the tenants, might use up their credit months before the crop was gathered. In such cases the merchant or landlord, or both, must make further advances to save what they have already invested or else must see the tenant abandon is crops and move.

These relations between landlord and tenant show much diversity, but certain conditions prevail everywhere. Few tenants can sustain themselves until the crop is gathered, and a very large percentage of them must eat and wear their crops before they are gathered a circumstance which will create no surprise unless the reader makes the common error of thinking of them as capitalists. Though the landlord in effect takes his tenants into partnership, they are really only laborers, and few laborers anywhere are six or eight months ahead of destitution. How many city laborers, even those with skilled trades, could exist without credit if their wages were paid only once a year? How many of them would have prudence or foresight enough to conserve their wages when finally paid and make them last until the next annual payment? The fault for which the tenant is to be blamed is that he does not take advantage of two courses of action open to him: first, to raise a considerable part of the food he consumes; and second, to struggle persistently to become independent of the merchant. Thousands of tenants have achieved their economic freedom, and all could if they would only make an intelligent and continued effort to do so.

Nowhere else in the United States has the negro the same opportunity to become self-sustaining, but his improvidence keeps him poor. Too often he allows what little garden he has to be choked with weeds through his shiftlessness. One of the shrewdest observers and fairest critics of the negro, Alfred Holt Stone, says of the Mississippi negro: “In a plantation experience of more than twelve years, during which I have been a close observer of the economic life of the plantation negro, I have not known one to anticipate the future by investing the earnings of one year in supplies for the next....The idea seems to be that the money from a crop already gathered is theirs, to be spent as fancy suggests, while the crop to be made must take care of itself, or be taken care of by the ‘white-folks.’" This statement is not so true of the negroes of the Upper South, many of whom are more intelligent, and have developed foresight and self-reliance.

The theory that there is an organized conspiracy over the whole South to keep the negro in a state of peonage is frequently advanced by ignorant or disingenuous apologists for the negro, but this belief cannot be defended. The merchants usually prefer to sell for cash, and more and more of them are reluctant to sell on credit. In some cotton towns no merchant will sell on credit, and the landlord is obliged to furnish supplies to those who cannot pay. The landowners generally would much prefer a group of prosperous permanent tenants who could be depended upon to give some thought to the crop of the future as well as to that of the present. In the South as a whole the negro finds little difficulty in buying land, if he can make a moderate first payment. It is true that some are cheated by the merchant or the landlord. Prices charged for supplies are too high, and the prices credited for crops are too low, but the debtors are hardly swindled to a greater extent than the ignorant and illiterate elsewhere.

The condition of the white tenant is sometimes little better than that of the negro. He usually farms a larger tract, 83.8 acres on the average (in 1910), as against 39.6 acres for the negro, and he is on the whole more prosperous; but there are many who live from hand to mouth, move frequently, habitually get into debt to the merchant or the landlord, and have little or no surplus at settling time. In the South in 1910 there were 866,000 white tenant farmers who cultivated 20.5 per cent of all the land, and since that time white tenancy has been increasing. The increase of land ownership is greater among the negroes than among the whites, who are in many cases illiterates. This illiteracy is one cause of their poverty, but not the only cause: a part of it is moral, involving a lack of steadfast purpose, and a part is physical. The researches conducted by the United States Government, the state boards of health, and the Rockefeller Foundation show clearly that much of the indolence charged to the less prosperous Southern rural whites is due to the effect of the hookworm, a tiny intestinal parasite common in most tropical and subtropical regions and probably brought from Africa or the West Indies by the negro. The Rockefeller Foundation is now spending nearly $300,000 a year in financing, wholly or in part, attempts to eradicate the disease in eight Southern States and in fifteen foreign countries.

The parasite enters the body from polluted soil, usually through the feet, as a large part of the rural population goes barefoot in the summer; it makes its way to the intestinal canal, where it fixes itself, grows, and lays eggs which are voided and hatch in the soil. Since most country districts are without sanitary closets, reinfection may occur again and again, until an individual harbors a host of these tiny bloodsuckers, which interfere with his digestion and sap his vitality. It is now believed that the morbid appetites of the “clay eaters” are due to this infection. The fact that the negro who introduced the curse is less susceptible to the infection and is less affected by it than the white man is one of life’s ironies.

There is a brighter side to this picture, however. Of all the cultivated land in the South 65 per cent is worked by owners (white 60.6 per cent; colored 4.4 per cent) and this land is on the whole much better tilled than that let to tenants. It is true that some of the landowners are chronically in debt, burdened with mortgages and with advances for supplies. Some of them probably produce less to the acre than tenants working under close supervision, but the percentage of farms mortgaged is less in the South than in any other part of the country except the Mountain Division, and unofficial testimony indicates that few farms are lost through foreclosure.

For years the agricultural colleges and the experiment stations offered good advice to the Southern farmer, but they reached only a small proportion. Their bulletins had a small circulation and were so full of technical expressions as to be almost unintelligible to the average farmer. Recently the writers have attempted to make themselves more easily understood, and the usefulness of their publications has consequently increased. The bulletins of the Department of Agriculture are read in increasing numbers, and several agricultural papers have a wide circulation. The “farmer’s institutes” where experts in various lines speak on their specialties are well attended, and the experimental farms to which few visitors came at first are now popular.

Two other agencies are doing much for agricultural betterment. One is the county demonstrator, and the other boys’ and girls’ clubs. Both are due to the foresight and wisdom of the late Dr. Seaman A. Knapp, of the United States Department of Agriculture. As early as 1903 Dr. Knapp had been showing by practical demonstration how the farmers of Texas might circumvent the boll weevil, which was threatening to make an end of cotton-growing in that State. He was able to increase the yield of cotton on a pest-ridden farm. The idea of the boys’ corn club was not new when Dr. Knapp took it up in 1908 and made it a national institution. The girls’ canning club was soon added to the list, and then came the pig club for boys and the poultry club for girls.

The General Education Board, which, with its large resources, had been seeking the best way to aid education in the South, was forced to the conclusion that any educational development must be preceded by economic improvement. The farm production of the South was less than that of other sections, and until this production could be increased, taxation, no matter how heavy, could not provide sufficient money for really efficient schools. After a study of the whole field of agricultural education, the ideas of Dr. Knapp were adopted as the basis of the work and, by arrangement with the Department of Agriculture, Dr. Knapp himself was placed in charge. The appropriations to the Department of Agriculture had been made for the extermination or circumvention of the boll weevil and could not be used for purely educational work in States where the weevil had not appeared. A division of territory was now made: the Department financed demonstration work in those States affected by the pest and the General Education Board bore the expense in the other States. Entire supervision of the work was in the hands of the Department of Agriculture, which made all appointments and disbursed all funds. The Board furnished funds but assumed no authority. The history issued by the General Education Board says: “Dr. Knapp endeavored to teach his hearers not only how to raise cotton and corn, but how to conduct farming as a business how to ascertain the cost of a crop, how to find out whether they were making or losing money. As rapidly as possible the scope was broadened for the purpose of making the farmer more and more independent. He was stimulated to raise stock, to produce feed and forage for his stock, and to interest himself in truck gardening, hog-raising, etc.”

The method used was to appoint county, district and state demonstration agents who would induce different farmers to cultivate a limited area according to specific directions. As these agents were appointed by the Department of Agriculture, the farmer was flattered by being singled out by the Government. In most cases the results of the experiments were far superior to those which the farmer had obtained merely by following tradition, and he usually applied the successful methods to his whole farm. Some of his neighbors, who visited the demonstration plot to scoff at the idea that any one in Washington could teach a farmer how to grow cotton or corn, were wise enough to recognize the improvement and to follow the directions. Every successful demonstration farm was thus a center of influence, and the work was continued after Dr. Knapp’s death under the charge of his son, Bradford Knapp.

The idea of the boys’ corn club was vitalized in 1908 by Dr. Knapp, who planned to establish a corn club in every neighborhood, with county and state organizations. Each boy was to cultivate a measured acre of land in corn, according to directions and keep a strict account of the cost. The work of his father, or of a hired man, in ploughing the land must be charged against the plot at the market rate. Manure, or fertilizer, and seed were likewise to be charged, but the main work of cultivation was to be done by the boy himself. The crop was to be measured by two disinterested witnesses who should certify to the result. Local pride was depended upon to furnish prizes for the county organization, but the most successful boys in every State were to be taken on a trip to Washington, there to shake hands with the Secretary of Agriculture and the President. This appeal to the imagination of youth was a master touch.

Thousands of boys were interested and achieved results which were truly startling. In every State the average yield from the boys’ acres was larger than the state average, in some cases almost five times as great. One South Carolina boy produced on his acre in 1910 over 228 bushels, and in 1913 an Alabama boy reached high-water mark with nearly 233 bushels. Hundreds of boys produced over 100 bushels to the acre, and the average of the boys in South Carolina was nearly 69 bushels, compared with an average of less than 20 for the adult farmers. The pig clubs which followed have likewise been successful and have stimulated an interest in good stock and proper methods of caring for it. Many country banks have financed these operations by buying hogs by the carload and selling to the club members on easy terms.

Girls’ canning clubs were organized by Dr. Knapp in 1910. Girls were encouraged to plant a tenth of an acre in tomatoes. Trained demonstrators then traveled from place to place and showed them how to use portable canning outfits. The girls met, first at one house and then at another, to preserve their tomatoes, and soon they began to preserve many other vegetables and fruits. Two girls in Tennessee are said to have preserved 126 different varieties of food. Some of these clubs have gained more than a local reputation for their products and have been able to sell their whole output to hotels or to institutions. Though the monetary gain has been worth something, the addition to the limited dietary of the homes has been worth more, and the social influence of these clubs has been considerable. The small farmer in the South is not a social being, and anything which makes for cooperation is valuable. The poultry clubs which were an extension of the canning club idea have been successful. The club idea, indeed, has been extended beyond the limits of the South. Congress, recognizing its value, has taken over and extended the work and has supported it liberally. Today market-garden clubs for the manufacturing cities, potato clubs, mother-and-daughter clubs, and perhaps others have grown out of the vision of Dr. Knapp.

Though these activities have had a great effect in improving the South, that section has not yet been transformed into an Eden. In spite of farm demonstrations, experiment stations, and boys’ and girls’ clubs, the stubborn inertia of a rural population fixed on the soil has only been shocked, not routed. Much land is barely scratched instead of being ploughed deep; millions of acres bear no cover crops but lose their fertility through the leaching of valuable constituents during the winter. Fertilizer is bought at exorbitant prices, while the richness of the barnyard goes to waste, and legumes are neglected; land is allowed to wash into gullies which soon become ravines. Farms which would produce excellent corn and hay are supplied with these products from the Middle West; millions of pounds of Western pork are consumed in regions where hogs can be easily and cheaply raised; butter from Illinois or Wisconsin is brought to sections admirably adapted to dairying; and apples from Oregon and honey from Ohio are sold in the towns. In several typical counties an average of $4,000,000 was sent abroad for products which could easily have been raised at home. In Texas some of the bankers have been refusing credit to supply merchants who do not encourage the production of food crops as well as cotton.

Throughout the South there are thousands of homes into which no newspaper comes, certainly no agricultural paper, and in which there are few books, except perhaps school books. The cooking is sometimes done with a few simple utensils over the open fire. Water must be brought from a spring at the foot of the hill, at an expenditure of strength and endurance. The cramped house has no conveniences to lighten labor or to awaken pride. The overworked wife and mother has no social life, except perhaps attendance at the services at the country church to which the family rides in a springless wagon. Such families see their neighbors prosper without attempting to discover the secret for themselves. Blank fatalism possesses them. They do not realize that they could prosper. New methods of cultivation, they think, are not for them since they have no capital to purchase machinery.

On the other hand, one sees more Ford cars than teams at many country churches, and many larger automobiles as well. Some Southern States are spending millions for better roads, and the farmer or his son or daughter can easily run into town in the afternoon carrying a little produce which more than pays for any purchases. Tractors are seen at work here and there, and agricultural machinery is under the sheds. Many houses have private water systems and a few farmers have harnessed the brooks for electric lights. The gas engine which pumps the water runs the corn sheller or the wood saw. The rural telephone spreads like a web over the countryside. Into these houses the carrier brings the daily or semi-weekly paper from the neighboring town, agricultural journals, and some magazines of national circulation; a piano stands in the parlor; and perhaps a college pennant or two hang somewhere, for many farm boys and girls go to college. In spite of the short terms of the public schools, many manage to get some sort of preparation for college, and in the South more college students come from farm homes than from town or city. This encouraging picture is true, no less than the other, and the number of such progressive farm homes is fortunately growing larger.

A greater range of products is being cultivated throughout the South, though more cotton and tobacco are being produced than ever before. The output of corn, wheat, hay, and pork has increased in recent years, though the section is not yet self-sufficient. The growing of early vegetables and fruits for Northern markets is a flourishing industry in some sections where land supposedly almost worthless has been found to be admirably adapted for this purpose. An increasing acreage in various legumes not only furnishes forage but enriches the soil. Silos are to be seen here and there, and there are some excellent herds of dairy cattle, though the scarcity of reliable labor makes this form of farming hazardous. The cattle tick is being conquered, and more beef is being produced. Thoroughbred hogs and poultry are common.

With the great rise in the price of the farmer’s products since 1910, the man who farms with knowledge and method is growing prosperous. Farmers are taking advantage of the Federal Farm Loan Act and are paying off many mortgages. The necessity of asking for credit is diminishing, and men have contracted to buy land and have paid for it from the first crop. While the things the farmer must buy have risen in price, his products have risen even higher in value; and in those sections of the South suited to mixed farming there need be comparatively little outgo.

One is tempted to hope that the lane has turned for the Southern farmer. Partly owing to his ignorance and inertia, partly to circumstances difficult to overcome, his lot after 1870 was not easy, and from 1870 to 1910 is a full generation. An individual who grew to manhood on a Southern farm during that period may be excused for a gloomy outlook upon the world. He finds it difficult to believe that prosperity has arrived, or that it will last. The number who have been convinced of the brighter outlook, however, is increasing.