Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T04:55:47.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Effciency of Southern Tenant Plantations, 1900–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Nancy Virts
Nancy Virts
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics, California State University at Northridge, Northridge, CA 91330
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The continued importance of tenant plantations in some areas of the South since the Civil War suggests that there was some advantage to large-scale agriculture. One source of economies of scale was in the marketing of high-quality cotton.

Type
Papers Presented at the Fiftieth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , June 1991 , pp. 385 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

The author wishes to acknowledge the helpful comments of william Brown, Joseph Feme, Kenneth Ng. Financial support was provided by the Business Associates of the School ofAdministration and Economics, California State University at Northridge.Google Scholar

1 Some exceptions are Lee Alston and Robert Higgs, who suggested that the size of landholdings might have influenced the preferred form of contract, and Joseph Reid, who suggested that the high percentage of acres devoted to cotton on tenant farms was caused by the organization of the larger unit of which they were a part. Alston, Lee J. and Higgs, Robert, “Contractual Mix in Southern Agriculture since the Civil War: Facts, Hypotheses, and Tests,” this Journal, 42 (06 1982), pp. 327–53;Google Scholar and Reid, Joseph, “White Land, Black Labor, and Agricultural Stagnation: The Causes and Effects of Sharecropping in the Postbellum South,” Explorations in Economic History, 16 (01, 1979), pp. 31–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 For examples, see Shugg, Roger, “Survival of the Plantation System in Louisiana”, Journal of Southern History, 3 (08. 1937), pp. 311–25;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWeiner, Jonathon, “Planter-Merchant Conflict in Alabama,” Past and Present, 68 (04 1975), pp. 72–94;Google Scholar and Mandle, Jay R., The Roots Of Black Poverty: The Southern Plantation Economy After The Civil War (Durham, 1978).Google Scholar

3 This definition follows that used by most of those who studied the plantation system agricultural production in the early twentieth century. See Brannen, C. O., “Relation of Land Tenure to Plantation Organization” (USDA Bulletin No. 1269, Oct. 1924), pp. 9–11;Google Scholarand Brooks, Robert, “The Agrarian Revolution in Georgia” (University of Wisconsin Bulletin No. 639, 1914).Google Scholar

4 This calculation assumes that all family members over the age of 10 worked on the farm and that the average family size and age structure was that of the black population of 1880. Neither changed much between 1880 and 1910. By 1945 the average household size for the United States had decreased to 3.67 (race-specific figures are not available), and the percent of black population over nine increased to 80 percent, implying a labor force size between 12 and 16. Wage workers provided extra labor during harvest and also worked the land that remained under the owner's direct control. In 1910 almost 25 percent of the improved acres on tenant plantations in the cotton- growing states were cultivated by wage workers, and in 1945 wage laborers worked almost 40 percent of crop acres harvested.Google ScholarSee Virts, Nancy, “The Southern Plantation System, 1900–1945” (Unpublished Manuscript, California State University at Northridge, 04 1990).Google Scholar

5 Woofter, T. J., Landlord and Tenant on the Cotton Plantation (Washington, DC, 1936), p. 26.Google Scholar

6 See Brannen, “Relation of Land Tenure”; Brooks, “The Agrarian Revolution in Georgia”;Google ScholarWelch, Frank, “The Plantation Land Tenure System in Mississippi” (Mississippi Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin No. 385, 06 1943);Google Scholarand Woodman, Harold, “Postbellum Social Change And Its Effects On Marketing The South's Cotton Crop,” Agricultural History, 56 (01 1982), pp. 215–30.Google Scholar

7 Using data from tax records, Roger Shugg found that the number of plantations in selected parishes in Louisiana increased by 286 percent between 1860 and 1880 (Origins of Class Struggle in Louisiana [Baton Rouge, 1966], pp. 239–41).Google ScholarSee also Langsford, E. L. and Thibodeaux, B. H., “Plantation Organization and Operation in the Yazoo Mississippi Delta Areas” (USDA Technical Bulletin No. 682, May 1939).Google Scholar

8 Brannen's study in 1920 found 405,435 acres on cotton plantations, 102,852 acres on rice plantations, and 10,254 acres on tobacco plantations in “Relation of Land Tenure,” pp. 52–24.Google Scholar

9 The 1900 Census of Agriculture reported only the amount of acreage rented out by the landowner. The amount of land operated directly by the owner was estimated by assuming that each owner living in the same county as his rented farms operated a farm of the same average size reported in the 1910 plantation census. For a more detailed account, see Virts, “The Southern Plantation System.”Google Scholar

10 The 1900 and 1945 data are available for all counties in the five states. In 1910 data were tabulated for only a subset of the counties. If the counties for which results were not tabulated in 1910 contained significant numbers of plantations, the size of the plantation sector may be underestimated.Google Scholar

11 Computed from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, Special Report Of Multiple Unit Operations In Selected Areas Of Southern States (Washington, DC, 1947), pp. 384, 421, 448, 469, 502. See Virts, “The Southern Plantation System,” for further details.Google Scholar

12 Welch, ‘The Plantation Land Tenure System,” p. 20.Google Scholar

13 Knapp, Joseph and Clement, Sheldon, “North Carolina Farm Prices of Cotton in Relation to Grade and Staple Length” (North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin No. 289, April 1934), pp. 36–38;Google Scholarand Schwartz, Michael, Radical Protest and Social Structure: The Southern Farmers' Alliance and Cotton Tenancy, 1880–1890 (New York, 1976), pp. 217–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 See Howell, L. D. and Watson, Leonard, “Cotton Prices in Relation to Cotton Classification Service and to Quality Improvement” (USDA Technical Bulletin No. 699, Dec 1939). pp. 4–5;Google ScholarFaught, William and Wells, Chester Jr, “Marketing Mississippi Delta Cotton” (Mississippi Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin No. 484, Sept. 1951), p. 170;Google Scholarand Knapp, Joseph, “The Home Market for North Carolina Cotton” (North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin No. 284, March 1933), pp. 35–36.Google Scholar

15 Independent buyers in local markets became important in the postbellum period because of improvements in communications and transportation and the growth of futures markets. The telegraph made it possible for these buyers to have the latest price information from major exchanges in New Orleans, Memphis, and Liverpool. The growth of futures trading reduced the risk of buying cotton to the point that banks were willing to extend credit to these buyers.Google Scholar See U. S. Senate, Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, Report on the Condition of Cotton Growers in the United States (Washington, DC, 1895), pp. 37–38, 213–43 (hereafter cited as the George Report).Google ScholarAlso Woodman, Harold D., King Cotton and His Retainers: Financing and Marketing the Cotton Crop of the South, 1800–1925 (Lexington, 1968), pp. 269–94.Google Scholar

16 Howell, L. D., “Cotton Prices in Spot and Futures Markets” (USDA Technical Bulletin No. 685, June 1939), p. 30; and the George Report, pp. 166–82.Google Scholar

17 See Howell, L. D. and Burgress, John, “Farm Prices of Cotton as Related to its Grade and Staple Length in the United States, 1928–29 to 1932–33” (USDA Technical Bulletin No. 493, Jan. 1936);Google Scholarand Garside, Alston Hill, Cotton Goes To Market (New York, 1935), pp. 181–43.Google Scholar

18 Testimony before the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry in 1893 confirmed that the majority of large planters sold their crops through factors in the major exchangesGoogle Scholar(see the George Report, p. 115). In 1950 over half of the cotton produced in the Mississippi Delta was handled by factors.Google ScholarFaught and Wells, “Marketing Mississippi Delta Cotton,” p. 4.Google ScholarSee also Hubbard, W. Hustace, Cotton and the Cotton Market (New York, 1925), pp. 136–38.Google Scholar

19 Boyle, James, Cotton and tile New Orleans Cotton Exchange (Garden City, 1934), p. 83;Google Scholarand Hubbard, Cotton and the Cotton Market, pp. 138–39.Google Scholar

20 Wells, Chester S. Jr and Beaird, James, “Cotton Marketing In The Upland Area Of Mississippi” (Mississippi State College Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin No. 517, May 1954), pp. 10–12.Google Scholar

21 The large Mississippi plantation described in this article sold 80 percent of its cotton directly to mills. See “Biggest Cotton Plantation,” Fortune (03. 1937), p. 158.Google Scholar

22 Miller, T. S., The American Cotton System (Austin, 1909), p. 36.Google Scholar

23 See Knapp, “The Home Market,” pp. 36–37;Google Scholarand Miley, D. Gary, “Commercial Agricultural Production and Marketing Methods and Facilities in Mississippi” (Mississippi Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin No. 394, Oct. 1943), p. 20.Google Scholar

24 Miley, “Commercial Agricultural Production,” pp. 20–21.Google Scholar

25 See Garside, Cotton Goes To Market, pp. 54–55;Google Scholarand Cohn, David, The Life and Times of King Cotton (New York, 1956), pp. 187–90.Google Scholar

26 Hubbard, Cotton and the Cotton Market, p. 26;Google Scholar and Howell and Burgress, “Farm Prices of Cotton, “Farm Prices of Cotton,” pp. 3–4.Google Scholar

27 See Howell and Burgress, “Farm Prices of Cotton,” pp. 24–29;Google Scholar and Howell and Watson, “Cotton Prices,” p. 16.Google Scholar

28 “Cotton Quality Statistics United States 1948–1949” (USDA Technical Bulletin No. 86, 1950), p. 168.Google Scholar

29 The free-rider problem appears to have been the downfall of at least one such cooperative in North Carolina. The cooperative was formed by members of the local seed association who made arrangements with a cotton firm in Charlotte to take cotton grown from certified seed at a premium over the average price in the local market. The arrangement was discontinued after two seasons because the group was unable to maintain the quality of the cotton. See Wright, J. W., Smith, G. R., and Shankin, J. A., “The Cotton Marketing Situation in the Salisbury Area of North Carolina” (North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin No. 317, Dec. 1937), p. 20.Google Scholar

30 The potential for fraud was high. In one common type of fraud, a small amount of high-quality cotton was ginned before a large quantity of lower-quality cotton to produce a bale of low-quality cotton with a layer of high-quality cotton on the outside. Hubbard, Cotton and the Cotton Marker, p. 113.Google Scholar

31 Knapp, “The Home Market,” p. 27; and the George Report, p. 100.Google Scholar

32 Hilgard, Eugene, Report on Cotton Production in the United States (Washington, DC, 1884), p. 56.Google Scholar

33 Moore, J. H., “Relation of the Quality of Cotton Planting Seed to Length of Staple (North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin No. 295, Feb. 1934);Google Scholarand Vance, Rupert, Human Geography Of The South (New York, 1968), p. 445.Google Scholar

34 “Cotton Quality Statistics,” pp. 44–50.Google Scholar

35 See U. S. Bureau of the Census, Special Report of Multiple Unit Operations in Selected Areas of Southern States (Washington, DC, 1947), pp. 3, 77, 163, 193, 317, for the definition of the types of farming areas.Google Scholar

36 In two cases the types of farming areas were defined in such a way that gin districts had to be combined. See Table 3.Google Scholar

37 I am indebted to Joseph Ferrie for this point.Google Scholar