The complete reorganization of the cotton growing industry constitutes the most violent agricultural change of this period. In 1860 the bulk of the cotton crop was grown, by slave labor. After the Civil War cotton prices were soaring because of the cotton famine during the war. It sold for 43 cents a pound in 1865 and for 30 cents in 1866. Under the stimulus of these prices many planters undertook to grow cotton on a large scale with hired negro help and with borrowed capital. The price fell rapidly and brought bankruptcy to many of the planters. But both the landowners and the negroes had to live, and to live mainly on cot ton. It was therefore necessary that some workable system should be devised. This was found in the one still in vogue throughout the greater part of the cotton belt, at least in the eastern half of it. The land is worked by negro tenant-farmers who cultivate small tracts on shares. Thus both landowner and laborer share in the risk and the danger of complete bankruptcy is avoided.
The Period of The year 1888 is chosen as the beginning of the fifth period in our agricultural history, not because any profound change was noticeable on that date, but because there began about that time a series of changes which are destined to pro duce,— which have, in fact, already begun to produce,—profound agricultural changes. Con gress had, in the preceding year, passed the famous Hatch Act, or the Experiment Station Act, as it is sometimes called. Agricultural ex perimentation began at once on an enlarged scale. This led to a more comprehensive and systematic application of the principles of ex perimental science to agriculture than had ever been undertaken before.
Another large fact is that through the rapid occupation of the public lands the available free lands in the humid belt were nearing exhaus tion. The old pioneering period in American agriculture was therefore drawing to a close and a new period was opening, wherein the farms must first be created by considerable outlay of labor and capital before profitable farming can begin. During the old period waste land was merely land which lay to the west. It was only necessary for the settlers to move to it in order to bring it within the cul tivated area. From now on waste land is land which goes to waste not because of geometrical distance, but because of bad physical, chemical or political conditions. Bad physical conditions may be described as (1) too wet; (2) too dry; (3) too stony; (4) too sandy. The cure for the first is drainage; for the second, irrigation; for the third, the clearing of the stones; for the fourth, the supplying of humus through the plowing under of manure and green crops. Bad chemical conditions may be described as (1) too much acid, and (2) too much alkali.
The cure for the first is lime. The second is a complicated problem too difficult for discussion within the limits of this article.* Bad political conditions may be described as (1) bad taxa tion; (2) undesirable social surroundings; (3) poor educational facilities; (4) poor sanitation. The cures are obvious.
The point to remember is that it is no longer possible for the landless man who can acquire a team, a wagon, plow, harrow and a few other implements, to begin farming on free public land. The drainage of wet land, the irrigation of dry land, the clearing of stony land, the supplying of humus to sandy land are laborious and expensive processes. These opportunities are consequently open only to men with some capital, either of their own or advanced to them on easy terms by others. The same may be said of land which is either too sour or too alkaline. Land which is going to waste through bad political or social conditions is more abun dant than is commonly supposed. A detailed description here would provoke resentment and do no good.
In the early settlement of the continent, when serious difficulties had to be overcome, experience showed that the colony system rather than the system of individual settlement was the practicable method. The system of in dividual settlement flourished under the easy conditions found in the Mississippi valley. Now that we are again face to face with diffi cult conditions, the lesson of history shows that we must again return to the colony method. In the field of irrigation the Mormons and the Greely colony of Colorado have furnished us with excellent examples.* The tendency, which has almost become a habit, of well-to-do farmers to leave the farms and retire to the towns, is primarily a result of bad social conditions in the open country. These call peculiarly for the colony idea as a corrective. Though the physical difficulties in the way of the new pioneering call for united or community effort, such as can only be found where the colony idea prevails, these do not point so unerringly toward the colony system as do the social difficulties. Where families of unlike ideals, customs and traditions are thrown together, higgledy-piggledy, in the same neighborhood through the method of individ ual settlement, it is difficult to secure effective community action. Such a settlement may suc ceed in overcoming the physical difficulties where they are as easy as they were in the middle-western prairies, but it can never suc ceed where they are as great as they are in most of the lands which remain to be subju gated, and it is utterly incapable of handling the social difficulties which are found in very many of our rural communities.