t 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