2 BULLETIN 1269, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
employed, the cropping system, labor movements, stability of the 
labor supply, plantation credit, and marketing. Most of these topics 
are considered from the standpoint of relations of landlord and 
tenant. 
AREA AND EXTENT OF THE PLANTATION SYSTEM 
Location and general description. — The plantation area extends 
irregularly around a crescent-shaped line drawn from southern Vir- 
ginia to south-central Texas, as shown by Figure 1. This area 
includes a considerable part of the most productive and highly devel- 
oped agricultural land in the South. Some of the more important 
sections of the area are found in the Piedmont Belt, the South Atlantic 
Coastal Plain, the Alabama-Mississippi Black Belt, the Tennessee 
Kiver Valley in Alabama, and in the lower Mississippi and tributary 
river valleys from southeastern Missouri to New Orleans. Farther 
west, some important plantation sections are found in the valleys of 
the Red, Trinity, Brazos, and Colorado Rivers, and in the Gulf 
Coastal Plain of Texas and Louisiana. 
The types of soil in the different areas are too varied for special 
description here. Plantation land of the Atlantic Coast States 
usually responds to the heavy application of commercial fertilizers, 
and when properly fertilized may be counted among the most pro- 
ductive lands in the South. 
The Alabama-Mississippi Black Belt represents the well-known 
type of calcareous soil found in other sections. The mixed land 
adjacent to this area, under favorable conditions, is also higlily pro- 
ductive. Black, waxy land also predominates in the rice area of the 
Gulf Coastal Plain and the Texas Black Prairie. - 
River valley lands throughout the area f urnish alluvial soil of high 
quality which requires little or no fertilizer. Plantation land usually 
lies in level or rolling tracts, sufficiently uniform to admit of inclosures 
of considerable size. Plantation lands are practically always natu- 
rally fertile, or capable of being made highly productive by the use 
of commercial fertilizers and manures or by crop rotation. 3 
The plantation, according to the accepted meaning of the term, has 
usually been considered as confined to the Southern States, and 
particularly to the areas mentioned. In Figure 1 it is seen that the 
sugar-cane region is limited to the southeastern parishes of Louisiana, 
although sugar cane for sirup making is produced on a commercial 
scale in southwestern Georgia, and to a lesser degree in other local- 
ities. The rice plantation belt has shifted since the Civil War from 
South Carolina to newer lands farther west. At present, rice, inter- 
spersed with sugar cane in southeastern Louisiana, extends through 
the coast counties from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River 
in Texas. A portion of the rice belt is located in the southeastern 
counties of Arkansas, but the plantation system is not so important 
in this section. 
• Department of Agriculture Bulletin No. 1068 for a description of the Texas Black Prairie section. 
Bgionis but slightly concerned with typical plantation farming, except in the sections adjacent to 
the river valli 
died description of soils, see Department of Agriculture Yearbook. 1921; and Atlas of 
on Section. 
