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CHAPTER 12
NEW BLOWS TO SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE DURING
THE THIRTIES: TRENDS AND POLICIES
I. Agricultural Trends During the ’Thirties
Of all the calamities that have struck the rural Negro people in the
South in recent decades—soil erosion, the infiltration of white tenants into
plantation areas, the ravages of the boll weevil, the southwestern shift in
cotton cultivation—none has had such grave consequences, or threatens
to have such lasting effect, as the combination of world agricultural trends
and federal agricultural policy initiated during the ’thirties. These changes
are revolutionizing the whole structure of Southern agricultural economy.
They have already rooted out a considerable portion of the Negro farmers
and made the future of the remaining group extremely problematic.
For more than a century America has been the leading cotton-producing
country in the world. But cotton growing in other countries was slowly
increasing, and the increase became substantial in the decade following the
First World War. American cotton production, except for annual fluctua-
tions, remained fairly constant during this period. Still during the ’twenties
American-grown cotton represented more than half of the total world pro-
duction. Meanwhile domestic consumption had ceased to increase. The
trend of cotton prices was downward during most of the ’twenties.^ Lange
remarks:
Looking back to this period, it is now rather obvious that cotton production in the
United States had already reached its limits of practical expansion. American cotton
had to face a keen competition on most markets abroad, as the production in certain
foreign countries, primarily China and Egypt, was increasing and new raw material
for textiles began to appear at the same time.^
But it was during the ’thirties that the over-production problem really
became serious. It was then that the demand was declining drastically abroad
and at home due to the depression and to the growing competition from
other countries and to the increased use of substitutes. The cotton economy
suffered much more from the depression and recovered much less after-
ward than did American agriculture in general.^
Southern tobacco also is losing out on the international market, and the
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