The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1904-05-03
The Economics Of the Plantation.

of small holdings of land, which has been thought
to promise the disappearance of all the planta-
tions. But a more careful study of the general
problem will show that the tendencies in the un-
settled periods of reconstruction and later were
probably of temporary character, and that some
thing like the old plantation will be established
as the predominant type of agricultural organiza-
ton in the South for the future.
The plantation was evolved in early colonial
Virginia as the most efficient system for growing
tobacco. That was before African slaves were
imported in any appreciable numbers. The ne
groes were soon found to fit in admirably with the
plantation arrangements. A similar system was
established in the Carolina districts producing
rice and indigo, and in the sugar-cane fields of
Louisiana. Finally the invention of the cotton
gin and the extension of cotton culture into the
uplands carried the plantation into the whole of
the staple-producing South. Wherever the land
was adapted to tobacco, rice, indigo, sugar, or
cotton, the plantation won the victory over the
small farm. It was the survival of the fttest.
The involuntary servitude of the laborers was
merely an incident. There is no essential reason
why the freedom of the slaves should destroy
the plantations.
The conditions of the problem in Southern
agriculture were and remain as follows:
1. Abundance of land. 2. Money crops, with
uncertain money returns. 3. Ignorant and unen-
terprising labor. 4. A large number of efficient
managers of agricultural labor, who are usually
also the owners of the soil and of such capital
as exists. The problem is how to organize this
labor under the existing conditions to secure the
best returns. In former times the plantation
system was developed as the most efficient for the
purpose, and to-day it is not at all clear that the
of,,1po of t1o+ orc+ovo hoe lo-or4ol
The plantation system was the application of
manufacturing or capitalistic methods to agricul-
tural production. The planter was a captain of
industry. He owned the land, he planned the
work of the year, and he saw to it that the work
was done. His problem was to lay out the fields
for the best return, to keep his laborers proftably
at work in all seasons, to guard against the over
working of his laborers or his mules, and to
watch receipts and expenditures with an eye for
economy. If the planter failed in any of these
requirements, he lost his wages of superintend-
ence. If he allowed expenditures to exceed re-
ceipts, he lost first his profits, then his rent, and
finally his capital. By overworking his land, his
mules, or his laborers, to their injury, he might
secure a greater return for one year, but was sure
to be the loser in the long run.
In a normal period the small farm could not
compete with a well-managed plantation in the
production of the staples. A man who is able to
manage a small farm to advantage is usually able
also to superintend the labor of others in his line
of work. Wages of efficient superintendent are
always much higher than the wages of mere
labor. The tendency, then, in the staple regions
where additional labor was to be had, was for the
successful farmer to establish himself as a plant
er. When an Independent artisan becomes a fore
man in a factory, or advances further to the
ownership and superintendent of a MILL, he does
no wrong to the other artisans or to the factory