I94 / PARADOXES OF FORCED LABOR - The Percentage ol Farm Resldenls Who were slaves, by size ol Fann to economies of scale. And not all economies of scale were in production. Our measures indicate that plantations of moderate size in the New South (sixteen to fifty slaves) may have had certain advantages in production over very large plantations. In general, however, the larger the farm, the greater the role of economies of scale. Economies of scale contributed only 6 percent to the efficiency of fairly small plantations with from one to fifteen slaves. Scale led to a 15 percent gain in efficiency for moderate-sized plantations with between sixteen and fifty slaves. And the average scale at which the largest plantations operated ~— those with over fifty slaves — raised their efficiency by just over 23 percent. In other words, plantations with just a few slaves were not really able to take advantage of the benefits of large-scale organiza- tion. Moderate—sized plantations were able to achieve most, but not quite all, of the benefits of large—scale organization which accrued to the very large plantations. It should be emphasized that the work thus far measures economies of scale only in the process of production. As is indicated in appendix B, there is some reason to believe that there were scale effects i.n the marketing and other aspects of plantation activity besides production. These effects are not captured by the present indexes. 4. Economies of scale were achieved only with _sl_age Jahgr_There were no large—sca_le southern farms based on free wage labor. Small free farms did not combine into large enterprises in order to achieve the benefits of scale. The larger the farm, the larger the percentage of persons who were slaves. On farms of ten or fewer persons, about 11 percent of the residents were slaves, on average. But on farms of fifty to one hundred persons, 90 percent were slaves. On farms of one hundred or more persons 94 percent were slaves. 5. There were significant difierences in the relative efficiency of slave [T antations within the two major sub- Parczrnt Silva 51400 100 M More A Comparison of the Efficiency of Old South Faun: with Nodhern and New South Farms south Fuma south Farms South Farms