In the past the signing of one of these legal instruments has often reduced the farmer to a state of peonage.
Naturally the merchant who has begun to extend credit, sometimes before the seed is in the ground, has a voice in deciding what crops shall be planted.

The favorite crops in the past have been tobacco and cotton, particularly the latter.

Both contain comparatively large value in small bulk; both can be stored conveniently, with little danger of deterioration; neither is liable to a total failure; a ready market for both is always available; and neither tempts the thief until it is ripe.
Only winter wheat, sown in the fall and reaped in early summer, is grown in the South, and the crop is somewhat uncertain.

A tenant who has secured advances on a crop of wheat during the fall and winter may easily move to an adjoining county or State in the spring and plant cotton there.

Half a crop of corn may easily be stolen, eaten by animals, or consumed by the tenant while still green.