24 BULLETIN 1269, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
Regular wage labor. — Regular wage labor on the plantation has been 
gradually giving away to tenancy. In recent years the regular wage 
laborer quickly gains cropper status. Some plantations are operating 
almost entirely without regular hands except utility workers, because 
of unstable labor conditions. The regular labor supply in such cases 
is either replaced by tenant-family or extra outside labor, or dispensed 
with, altogether. This is not the most desirable condition, especially 
on plantations attempting diversification. 
The decreasing importance of regular wage laborers is shown by the 
fact that on 161 cotton plantations selected for study there were, in 
1920, only 1 ,028 regular wage hands, or a little more than 6 per planta- 
tion. Of this number 480, less than half, were day hands, and 548 were 
employed by the month. Employment of wage hands by the year, a 
general practice after the Civil War, is found now only in exceptional 
cases and in most areas not at all. This formerly important class of 
workers has recently been practically absorbed by the cropper class. 
Of 2,310 regular laborers on 210 plantations, 87.4 per cent were 
negroes and 12.8 per cent were whites. All races except Negroes are 
classed here as white. A large percentage of the 295 white laborers 
were Mexicans. On sugar-cane and rice plantations most of the 
monthly employed hands, who are often skilled mechanics and other 
specialists, are white. 
Extra wage labor. — One of the problems of the present-day plan- 
tation system is the adjustment of available labor to crop acreage for 
the whole year. Cultivation and harvest work make such spasmodic 
demands for labor that a certain amount of " floating" labor is neces- 
sary. Since the passing of a dependable supply of regular wage labor, 
extra wage labor forms the basis for elasticity of labor adjustment on 
the plantation. 
Extra labor in the cotton region is used mainly for chopping and 
picking. On suger-cane and rice plantations extra laborers are 
usually employed for the harvest. When employed for work on the 
landlord's individual crop, extra labor is employed for general work 
in the crops and for hay making. Of 88 plantations studied, more 
than half were reported as using extra labor for the tenant crops, 
about two-fifths for the landlord's individual crop, and a small per- 
centage for the benefit of both landlord and tenants. 
The extra labor supply is drawn from tenant families on the planta- 
tion, from near-by towns and cities, and from other sections of the 
country. All three sources are relied upon in the more western sec- 
tions, but the two former generally meet the needs in other parts of 
the plantation region. 
Negro laborers frequently congregate about the towns and cities in 
considerable numbers. Some of them are transient, but the majority 
work at odd jobs about the towns until spring or fall, when they go 
to the fields. In Texas, where the acreage per tenant is higher than 
in other regions, the larger part of extra labor is obtained from the 
low us and cities. In (his section, the labor following the whitening 
cotton fields drifts from the south northward during the picking sea- 
son a practice not common in the other sections. 
In the Mississippi Valley, and other sections to the east, the 
tendency has been to restrict the tenant acreage so as to use the tenant 
himself and tenant families as extra la hoi- on the landlord's individual 
farm. While this practice limits the total production of the individ- 
