By the 1880s, What Had Happened to Most Southern Farmers

By the 1880s, what had happened to most southern farmers?

A) They were the wealthiest, most stable members of southern society.
B) They specialized in growing cash crops such as cotton and tobacco and therefore were particularly vulnerable to the fluctuations of commercial agriculture.
C) They had left the land to become industrial workers because western competition drove southern farms out of business.
D) They had sold their land to northern speculators.
E) They were self-sufficient because they reverted to subsistence farming.