Southern Lien Laws.

Editor Trotwood’s:

The lien laws of most of the Southern states should be repealed. They have served their purpose, and are no longer needed. They are millstones around the neck of twentieth century progress. To the uninitiated it may be necessary to explain that these laws make it possible to use as collateral for a loan things not yet in existence. It is a mortgage on air, sunshine, rain and prospects. The renter of a small farm goes, say in January, to a village merchant, states how much land he will plant, what he expects the total yield will be and the merchant then agrees to advance him, from time to time, supplies of all kinds—food, clothing, implements, and so on, up to an agreed upon amount. For this amount the merchant takes a lien or mortgage upon the prospective crop.

The cotton crop is not planted until April or May, so that a goodly part of the supplies are consumed before a seed is in the ground.

The wreck and ruin of a four years’ war left little besides the land of the South, and the enactment of these laws was an expedient adopted to meet an emergency. The necessity for them has long since passed, leaving the laws on the statute books. They have not been repealed because politicians are afraid of the poor man’s vote. They lack that independence that would do what is best for him over his protest. That such laws encourage idleness, dependence, thriftlessness and improvidence among those who most need to practice their opposites is well illustrated by the following actual occurrence.

One afternoon last August a friend of mine came upon a white renter sitting on the bank of Saluda river fishing. During the conversation my friend expressed the hope that the long drought might be broken by a shower, whereupon the fisherman replied: “Yes, my melon patch needs hit powerful bad, but I’ve drawed about all I kin git on my cotton patch anyway, and I don’t care whether a drap falls on hit or not.”

H. K. A.

Laurens, S. C.

TROTWOOD’S MONTHLYDevoted to Farm, Horse and Home.
TROTWOOD PUBLISHING CO., Nashville, Tenn. Office 150 Fourth Ave., North.
JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE,
Editor-in-Chief.
E. E. SWEETLANDBusiness Manager
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NASHVILLE, TENN., MARCH, 1906.