White farmers in the late nineteenth-century South:

a. by and large owned their own land.

b. included many sharecroppers involved in the crop-lien system.

c. refused to grow cotton because it had been a "slave crop."

d. were all enormously prosperous following the end of the Civil War.

e. saw their debts decrease as crop prices went up from 1870 to 1900.

b. Included Many Sharecroppers involved in the crop-lien system

Explanation:

The Late Nineteenth Century

The late nineteenth century was the post Civil War era where slavery had been abolished and many white farmers who had previously used black slaves to farm on their cotton farms no longer had the ability to do so and did not also have the capability to get people to work on their farms.

ShareCropping System

The Sharecropping therefore was developed in response to the challenges at that time, it was a way for poor farmers both black and white to work on a land owned by another person and also earn a living. The system was such that the land owner would provide the land, the tools, seed, housing even the farm animals for use by the Sharecropper. The sharecropper works using the provided facilities and receive one-third to half of the crops produced that year as the wages for the work.

The landowner who provides the facilities will take the remaining portion after giving the sharecropper his entitlement. This was the alternative to the slavery system that had prevailed in the south until then.

Crop-lien System

The Crop-Lien in the system came to be because local merchants in the areas where sharecropping was used would provide food and supplies to the sharecroppers on credit. By so doing, the local merchant will have a lien on the crops to be produced. The sharecroppers will need to pay the merchants from the their share of crops produced at the end of the harvest.