288 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



The reader will have already understood that the characteristic 

 form of the cotton plantation was the large estate. Not all the 

 large landed properties in the South, however, were confined to 

 cotton culture. Many of the large plantations were already in 

 existence when cotton culture was introduced. Their origin is to 

 be traced partly to the social customs of the early settlers, many 

 of whom were the sons of the English landed gentry ; partly to 

 the facilities of commerce offered by the wide and slowly mov- 

 ing rivers in the Southern colonies, along whose banks the large 

 plantations were usually to be found ; partly to the laws of in- 

 heritance existing in the Southern colonies ; and partly to the 

 nature of the commodities w T hich were raised on these planta- 

 tions tobacco, indigo and rice the cultivation of which re- 

 quired more capital than was possessed by the small farmer. 

 The large plantation owed its existence, most of all, however, to 

 the labor system which existed in the Southern colonies where 

 either slave labor or compulsory white labor was the prevailing 

 form. The organization and superintendence of enforced labor 

 was more easy and more economical on the large plantation than 

 on the small one. 



In spite of the hopes and predictions of many Southern writers 

 at the close of the eighteenth century, the introduction of cotton 

 culture did not result in a change from the large plantation system 

 of agriculture to that carried on on small holdings. The tendency 

 did, indeed, at first seem to be in that direction. The more 

 industrious of the poor whites who had lacked the capital for 

 engaging in the cultivation of indigo or rice were often led to 

 take up a small holding, and, with the aid of their families, to 

 engage in the raising of cotton. The abolition of the law of pri- 

 mogeniture in South Carolina and elsewhere also contributed to 

 the breaking up of the large plantations. Besides, in cultivating 

 the sea-island cotton, it had been discovered that there were great 

 profits in developing this grade of cotton to the highest degree 

 possible, and this required intensive cultivation, such as could be 

 carried on only on the small plantation. But notwithstanding these 

 circumstances which seemed favorable to the development of the 

 small estate, the great movement throughout the cotton belt was 



