 He managed to maintain his farm even through the natural disasters such as the boll weevil epidemic and the collapse of cotton prices.Ned, by now a middle aged man and successful by the standards of the time (he was particularly proud of the fact he supplied his grown sons with mules and other means of making a living) saw many of his fellow sharecroppers dispossessed due to debt to landowners and then even saw others such as himself, who were not in debt, lose property on highly specious allegations.Cobb became one of the most successful sharecroppers (or black men in all occupations) in the rural Jim Crow-regulated county.