If cotton rose in price, the
rent rose even higher; if cotton fell, the rent remained or
followed reluctantly. If the tenant worked hard and raised a
large crop, his rent was raised the next year; if that year the
crop failed, his corn was confiscated and his mule sold for
debt. There were, of course, exceptions to this,--cases of
personal kindness and forbearance; but in the vast majority of
cases the rule was to extract the uttermost farthing from the
mass of the black farm laborers.
The average metayer pays from twenty to thirty per cent of
his crop in rent. The result of such rack-rent can only be
evil,--abuse and neglect of the soil, deterioration in the
character of the laborers, and a widespread sense of injustice.
"Wherever the country is poor," cried Arthur Young, "it is
in the hands of metayers," and "their condition is more
wretched than that of day-laborers." He was talking of Italy a
century ago; but he might have been talking of Dougherty
County to-day. And especially is that true to-day which he
declares was true in France before the Revolution: "The
metayers are considered as little better than menial servants,
removable at pleasure, and obliged to conform in all things to
the will of the landlords.
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