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Land, Labor, and Economies of Scale in Early Maryland: Some Limits to Growth in the Chesapeake System of Husbandry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Lois Green Carr  and
Russell R. Menard
Lois Green Carr
Affiliation:
Historian, St. Mary's City Commission, care of the Maryland State Archives, 350 Rowe Blvd., Annapolis, MD 21401.
Russell R. Menard
Affiliation:
Historian, St. Mary's City Commission, care of the Maryland State Archives, 350 Rowe Blvd., Annapolis, MD 21401.
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Extract

Seventeenth-century planters developed a new system of husbandry, a long fallow, hoe-based agriculture that raised tobacco for export and Indian corn for subsistence. Plentiful land and shortages of labor characterized the system, which had few economies of scale. It provided rapid increases in wealth during the farm building stages, but its land and labor constraints set limits on growth. Eighteenth-century adaptations created economies of scale that permitted planters to grow grains for export without reducing tobacco crops. Planters who did not adopt these changes did not share in the resulting prosperity, and many left.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , June 1989 , pp. 407 - 418
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1989

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References

1 Carr, Lois Green, Menard, Russell R., and Wash, Lorena S., Robert Cole's World: Agriculture and Society in Early Maryland (Chapel Hill, forthcoming),Google ScholarWe have described the Cole plantation in “A Small Planter's Profits: The Cole Estate and the Growth of the Early Chesapeake Economy,” William and Mary Quarierly, 3rd series. 40 (Apr. 1983), pp. 171–96. Unless otherwise noted, documentation of points made in this essay will be found in that book and article.Google Scholar

2 Evidence on changing wealth levels in the Chesapeake economy is summarized in McCusker, John J. and Menard, Russell R., The Economy of British America, 1607–1789 (Chapel Hill, 1985), pp. 139–43.Google Scholar On variations in timing in southern Maryland, see Harris, P. M. G., “Integrating Interpretations of Local and Regionwide Change in the Study of Economic Development and Demographic Growth in the Colonial Chesapeake, 1630–1775,” Working Papers from the Regional Economic History Research Center, 1, No. 3 (1978). pp. 35–72.Google Scholar

3 James R. Irwin's data on output per worker in tobacco, corn, and meat—the three major products of the Chesapeake system of husbandry in the seventeenth century—support our argument regarding scale economies. Irwin, James R., “Exploring the Affinity of Wheat and Slavery in the Virginia Piedmont,” Explorations in Economic History, 25 (07 1988), pp. 295–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 On this point, see Price, Jacob, “Reflections on the Economy of Revolutionary America,” in Hoffman, Ronald et al. , eds., The Economy of Early America: The Revolutionary Period (Chapel Hill, 1988), p. 307.Google Scholar

5 There is a useful discussion of the size and characteristics of quarters in Main, Gloria L., Tobacco Colony: Life in Early Maryland, 1650–1720 (Princeton, 1982), pp. 128–35.Google Scholar

6 This point is supported by the data in Table 1, which show that only 12 percent of the plantations in Anne Arundel County were worked by more than six bound laborers, and only 19 percent by more than four.Google Scholar

7 Given the care and detail to attention needed to produce quality tobacco, it is likely that supervision requirements weighed heavily on planters contemplating expansion. On the need for care in tobacco production, see Breen, T. H., Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of Revolution (Princeton, 1985), pp. 40–83.Google Scholar On supervision, see Fenoaltea, Stefano, “Slavery and Supervision in Comparative Perspective: A Model,” this Journal, 44 (09 1984), pp. 635–68.Google Scholar

8 On corn output per hand, see Walsh, Lorena S., “Plantation Management in the Chesapeake, 1620–1820,” this Journal, 49 (06 1989).Google ScholarWalsh has found that tobacco planters could raise at least 10 to 15 barrels per hand without cutting back on tobacco production. The literature on rising grain exports is summarized in Menard, McCuskernd, Economy of British America, pp. 129–31.Google Scholar

9 Seventeenth-century hilling is calculated from Force, Peter, ed., Tracts and Other Papers Relating Principally to the Origin, Settlement, and Progress of the Colonies in North America, 3 (Gloucester, MA, 1963: ong. imprint. 1844). No. II, p. 12.Google ScholarOn later practices, see Agricultural Museum, 11 (1811). p. 149 (we thank David O. Percy, director of the National Colonial Farm in Accokeek, MD, for this reference); “Peter Kalm's Description of Maize. How It is Planted and Cultivated in North America, Together with the Many Uses of this Crop Plant,”Google Scholar translated by Larson, Esther Louise, Agricultural History, 9 (04 1935). pp. 104–9;Google ScholarThe Journal of John Harrower, An indentured Servant in tile Colony of Virginia (Williamsburg, 1963), pp. 52–53, 93, 112:Google ScholarCarr, Lois Green and Walsh, Lorena S.. “Economic Diversification and Labor Organization in the Chesapeake, 1650–1820,” in Innes, Stephen, ed., Work and Labor in Early America (Chapel Hill, 1988), pp. 144–48;Google ScholarPercy, David O., The Production of Tobacco Along tile Colonial Potomac, The National Colonial Farm Research Report No. I (Accokeek. MD. 1979);Google Scholar and Percy, David O., Corn: The Production of a Subsistence Crop on the Colonial Potomac, The National Colonial Farm Research Report No. 2 (Accokeek, MD, 1977).Google Scholar

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11 On the wealth spurt, see McCusker and Menard, Economy of British America p. 140.Google Scholar On soil exhaustion, see Papenfuse, Edward C., “Planter Behavior and Economic Opportunity in a Staple Economy,” Agricultural History, 46 (04 1972), pp. 297–311;Google Scholar and Percy, David O., “Mining the Soil: Extractive Chesapeake Agricultural Techniques” (paper presented to the Economic History Association, Sept. 1988).Google Scholar

12 Inventories for seven Chesapeake counties (six in Maryland) show considerable variation by area in the incidence of plows by wealth levels, but all show that small planters were much less likely to produce corn surpluses than their rich neighbors and that they made little effort to grow wheat. Tables to demonstrate these points can be obtained from the authors. See also Carr, Lois Green, “Diversification in the Colonial Chesapeake: Somerset County. Maryland. in Comparative Perspective,” in Carr, Lois Green, Morgan, Philip D.. and Russo, Jean B., eds., Colonial Chesapeake Society (Chapel Hill, 1988).Google Scholar On livestock practices of eighteenth-century small planters, see Percy, David O., Of Fast Horses, Black Cattle, Woods Hogs, and Rat-Tailed Sheep: Animal Husbandry Along the Colonial Potomac, The National Colonial Farm Research Report No. 4 (Accokeek, MD, 1979).Google Scholar

13 See Kulikoff, Allan, Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake, 1680–1720 (Chapel Hill, 1986), p. 81;Google Scholar and Clemens, Paul G. E., The Atlantic Economy and Colonial Maryland's Eastern Shore: From Tobacco to Grain (Ithaca, 1980), p. 173.Google Scholar

14 For the difficulties of adjusting seed to yield ratios, labor supply, and livestock management, see Slicher von Bath, H. C., The Agraian History of Western Europe, A.D. 500–1850, translated by Ordish, Olive (New York, 1963), pp. 22–23.Google Scholar

15 See, for example, Carr, Lois Green and Walsh, Lorena S., “The Transformation of Production on the Farm and in the Household in the Chesapeake, 1650–1820,” Working Papers of the Social History Workshop, Department of History, University of Minnesota (1988), table 1; Clemens, Atlantic Economy, p. 230;Google Scholar and Carr, Lois Green, “Inheritance in the Colonial Chesapeake,” in Hoffman, Ronald and Albert, Peter J., eds., Women in the Era of the American Revolution (Charlottesville, forthcoming).Google Scholar

16 On inheritance, opportunities, and migration, see Kulikoff, Tobacco and Slaves, pp. 131–41.Google Scholar