The Broken Cotton Belt

Abstract

T' 1 XHE Cotton Belt is generally described as an area occupying greater part of the southern states wherein geographical conditions are suitable for growth of cotton from which a large percentage of the agricultural population derives some or most of its cash income. Though the idea still persists in the minds of many, and may be true to a limited degree, great changes in land economy of the South have taken place within the past twentyfive years to require qualification of the further use of the expression Cotton Belt with qualifications. Basic geographic factors which have made cotton production possible in the area still endure, for the most part unchanged. The conversion in land economy of the South, which has taken place, is largely result of economic factors and to lesser degree social and political causes. Cotton was a Southern crop in Colonial days, generally planted for home use. As a hand industry, preparation of raw cotton for spinning and weaving of cloth was a slow, laborious task and as long as it remained in this stage, small acreage of cotton sufficed to meet needs of the people. A series of inventions, the spinning-jenny, the loom, and the cotton gin changed production of cotton cloth from a hand to a machine industry. Accompanying the transformation in the textile industry, an ever increasing demand for raw cotton was created and acknowledged by Southern planters with increase in cotton acreage. Cotton proved to be a profitable crop and before long it had established itself in the agricultural economy of the Southeast and was expanding rapidly in acreage at expense of other crops. From the Old South, cotton production started moving west taking over choice lands wherever it went-into the New South, onward into the Deep South and at a still later date into the irrigated areas of the Southwest and California. During the Civil War the South was unable to raise very much cotton. The whole economic fabric of life in the South