[Footnote 36: J.A. Turner, ed., _Cotton Planter's Manual_, pp. 128, 129.]

In the cotton belt as a whole the census takers of 1850 enumerated 74,031
farms and plantations each producing five bales or more,[37] and they
reckoned the crop at 2,445,793 bales of four hundred pounds each. Assuming
that five bales were commonly the product of one full hand, and leaving
aside a tenth of the gross output as grown perhaps on farms where the
cotton was not the main product, it appears that the cotton farms and
plantations averaged some thirty bales each, and employed on the average
about six full hands. That is to say, there were very many more small
farms than large plantations devoted to cotton; and among the plantations,
furthermore, it appears that very few were upon a scale entitling them
to be called great, for the nature of the industry did not encourage the
engrossment of more than sixty laborers under a single manager.[38] It is
true that some proprietors operated on a much larger scale than this. It
was reported in 1859, for example, that Joseph Bond of Georgia had marketed
2199 bales of his produce, that numerous Louisiana planters, particularly
about Concordia Parish, commonly exceeded that output; that Dr. Duncan of
Mississippi had a crop of 3000 bales; and that L.R. Marshall, who lived at
Natchez and had plantations in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, was
accustomed to make more than four thousand bales.[39] 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.]

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