APPENDIX A 
By reducing the work of the wage labor family and that of the cropper or 
tenant family to the same money equivalent, it is possible to calculate the approxi- 
mate extent of wage labor plantations in the total area. The average wages paid 
farmlabori n the plantation States in 1910 approximated $20 per month. 1 Allow- 
ing $200 (10 months) for the man and $94 for family labor, 2 a total of $294 
represents the work-equivalent of a plantation tenant family. In 1909 there 
were 228,123 plantation croppers and tenants on plantations employing primarily 
croppers and tenants with average farms of 30 improved acres. 3 In 1909, about 
$42,432,000 was expended for wage labor on farms expending $1,000 or more. 
Therefore, the total amount expended, at the rate of $294 per labor family, is 
equivalent to the amount in wages paid 144,327 plantation labor families, or 
the amount of land so worked is equivalent to 4,329,810 improved acres in 
cropper and tenant farms of 30 acres each. However, 2,726,469 improved acres 
were reported by the Bureau of the Census in farms using wage labor. Sub- 
tracting this amount from the total wage labor acreage of 4,329,810, there re- 
mains 1,603,341 acres of wage labor land outside of plantations employing 
primarily croppers and tenants. By reducing the acreage (1,603,341) outside of 
such plantations to plantations of average size as to number of croppers and 
tenants (the average plantation in the 22,157 had 10 tenants or croppers with 
30 acres of improved land each), the equivalent of about 5,300 wage labor plan- 
tations is found. The 5,300 plantations worked by wage labor, combined with 
the 22,157 worked by croppers and tenants, make a total of 27,457 plantations 
averaging 10 families. This is believed to be a conservative estimate of the 
number of plantations of average size in 325 plantation counties. 
A close approximation to the figure derived for wage-operated plantations is 
obtained in another way. In 1909, in the same counties, 4,740 farms were re- 
ported by the census as having 1,000 acres or more. It is known that these 
farms were operated with wage labor, inasmuch as tenant farms are reported 
separately in the census. If the farms of slightly less than 1,000 acres worked 
by wage labor were included, the 4,740 would be raised to at least 5,300, the 
other estimate just given. 
i Monthly Crop Reporter, TJ. S. Department of Agriculture, December, 1919. 
2 See estimate of annual wage, census publication, Plantation Farming in l he United States, p. SO. 
3 Ibid, Tables 10 and 11. 
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