LAND TENURE AND PLANTATION ORGANIZATION 9 
single unit by "gang" labor, was subdivided into small tracts, com- 
monly called" parcels" or "cuts", and worked by croppers or ten- 
ants. All three classes of labor — wage bands, croppers, and tenants — 
are used at present, and a combination of the three is frequently 
found on the same plantation. Thus the system of employing 
plantation labor has been completely transformed, and the planta- 
tion organization and equipment has been modified to meet the 
needs of the new order. 
What is a plantation? — At present, there are so many shades and 
modifications of large-scale farming with the various kinds of labor 
employed under varying conditions, that even local usage fails to 
indicate a particular type of organization as that of a plantation. 
Some difficulty is encountered in distinguishing plantations from 
large holdings of scattered tracts of land, in the management of which 
are involved some of the methods of the plantation system. There- 
fore, the question naturally arises, what is a plantation? This 
question is best answered by considering what properly constitutes 
the definition of a farm, from a plantation point of view. 
The several issues of the Federal census have adopted the method 
of classifying each tenant or cropper subdivision of a plantation as one 
farm, and all the land operated by family or cash-wage labor as one 
farm. 9 This classification fails to represent properly the nature of 
the plantation. A plantation operated by wage labor is obviously 
one farm, since it is controlled by one management in all of its 
details. But a plantation with tenants is a slightly different organi- 
zation, although the difference may be more nominal than real when 
the tenants are closely supervised. For example, in production, 
except where nominal tenants work "through and through," 10 
with the landlord and each other, each tenant holding might be 
considered as a separate farm. But in matters of administration, 
supervision, marketing, and the like, the plantation as a whole 
employing tenants or croppers is only one farm. 
An understanding of the distinction attempted here may be clearer 
if the plantation operated by the use of tenant labor is compared to 
a State, which is composed of counties. Each county represents a 
unit of organization, but no county has sole charge of its own affairs. 
The county is only a part of the whole unit, the State. Likewise, 
the tenant farm constitutes one of the several units of the whole 
establishment, the plantation. 
With this general understanding, it is now possible to make a more 
concise statement of the chief characteristics of the plantation in the 
form of a definition. For the purpose of this discussion, the present- 
day plantation may be defined as a unified agricultural organization of 
considerable size under one management, of practically a continuous 
tract of land, operated as a single unit with respect to the methods of 
control of labor and products, all of which may be worJced by wage 
hands, or all or a part of which may be subdivided and let to tenants. 
Such an organization, in the past, has practically always been 
devoted primarily to the production of a staple crop. 
9 "Family" labor refers to the labor performed by the operator and his family. "Cash" wage labor 
refers to the labor performed by wage hands working for cash wage as distinguished from croppers working 
for a share of the crop as wages, to be defined fully later. 
10 "Through and through, "according to local usage, refers to the system of working tenants or croppers 
in gangsl ike wage hands without regard for any individual's crop, but each tenant or cropper having a claim 
on the crops produced on a certain tract of land. Such a farm has practically all of the characteristics of a 
wage-labor plantation, except in the method of remunerating labor. 
