The explanation lies of course in the possession by such men of several more or less independent plantations of manageable size.  Bond’s estate, for example, comprised not less than six plantations in and about Lee County in southwestern Georgia, while his home was in the town of Macon.  The areas of these, whether cleared or in forest, ranged from 1305 to 4756 acres.[40] But however large may have been the outputs of exceptionally great planters, the fact remains on the other hand that virtually half of the total cotton crop each year was made by farmers whose slaves were on the average hardly more numerous than the white members of their own families.  The plantation system nevertheless dominated the regime.

[Footnote 37:  Compendium of the Seventh Census, p. 178]

[Footnote 38:  DeBow’s Review, VIII, 16.]

[Footnote 39:  Ibid., XXVI, 581.]

[Footnote 40:  Advertisement of Bond’s executors offering the plantations for sale in the Federal Union (Milledgeville, Ga.), Nov. 8, 1859.]

The British and French spinners, solicitous for their supply of material, attempted at various times and places during the ante-bellum period to enlarge the production of cotton where it was already established and to introduce it into new regions.  The result was a complete failure to lessen the predominance of the United States as a source.  India, Egypt and Brazil might enlarge their outputs considerably if the rates in the market were raised to twice or thrice their wonted levels; but so long as the price held a moderate range the leadership of the American cotton belt could not be impaired, for its facilities were unequaled.  Its long growing season, hot in summer by day and night, was perfectly congenial to the plant, its dry autumns permitted the reaping of full harvests, and its frosty winters decimated the insect pests.  Its soil was abundant, its skilled managers were in full supply, its culture was well systematized, and its labor adequate for the demand.  To these facilities there was added in the Southern thought of the time, as no less essential for the permanence of the cotton belt’s primacy, the plantation system and the institution of slavery.

CHAPTER XIII

TYPES OF LARGE PLANTATIONS

The tone and method of a plantation were determined partly by the crop and the lie of the land, partly by the characters of the master and his men, partly by the local tradition.  Some communities operated on the basis of time-work, or the gang system; others on piece-work or the task system.  The former was earlier begun and far more widely spread, for Sir Thomas Dale used it in drilling the Jamestown settlers at their work, it was adopted in turn on the “particular” and private plantations thereabout, and it was spread by the migration of the sons and grandsons of Virginia throughout the middle and western South as far as