ABSTRACT
The cotton economy of the US South underwent a dramatic transformation during the period 1950 to 1970. Cotton went from a highly labour intensive to a capital intensive crop. The number of sharecroppers and tenants in the ten leading cotton-producing states in the South fell from 807,013 in 1950 to 113,351 in 1970 (US Department of Commerce 1952, 1971). The complete mechanisation of cotton production, i.e., ploughing, cultivation and harvesting, was responsible for the decline in labour intensity (Aiken 1978; Alston 1981; Fite 1984). The mechanisation of cotton also brought about other changes in the industrial organisation of cotton production, and these are the focus of this paper: (a) mechanisation increased the costs of using sharecrop and tenant contracts compared to wage contracts; and (b) the adoption of mechanical pickers necessitated a technological compatibility between cotton pickers and cotton gins that influenced the farm/market boundary and the survival of cotton production in some regions.2
