200 / PARADOXES OF FORCED LABOR RELATIVE EFFICIENCY OF SLAVE AGRICULTURE / 2.01 § realm of management, particularly in the development of 3:’ organizational methods which permitted southern planters ; to capture the potential benefits of economies of large-scale ' operation. It must be remembered that the shift from the production of grain and tobacco to cotton, sugar, and rice coincided with a substantial increase in the average size of slaveholdings. The optimal farm size appears to have differed by crop. There is little evidence of economies of scale i.n grain production; and economies of scale appear to have been fairly limited in tobacco production. Thus, farms located in counties specializing in these crops grew little between 1790 and 1860. On the eve of the Civil War the average size of Virginia slaveholdings was still only 18.8, While the county averages in the alluvial regions of short—staple cotton production ranged as high as one hundred and twenty-five slaves per holding. By the last decade prior to the Civil War the optimal size (minimum size of the most efficient farms) had increased to approximately fifty slaves in the cotton lands of the black belt and to over two hundred slaves in counties of the alluvial lands along the Mississippi. Indeed by the last decade of the slave era, the ability to provide efficient management appears to have become the main constraint on the optimal size of plantations. One should not leap to the conclusion that this finding supports the stereotype of planters as a class of "idlers” who lacked “steady habits and frugal instincts,” and who usually entrusted the primary management of their plantations to inept, cruel overseers while they indulged their taste for pleasure in various cities of the South, the North, or of Europe. No doubt such planters existed. But they were a distinct minority. Among moderate-sized holdings (sixteen to fifty slaves) less than one out of every ‘six plantations used a white overseer. On large slaveholdings (over fifty slaves) only one out of every four owners used white over- seers. Even on estates with more than one hundred slaves, the proportion with white overseers was just 30 percent, Figure 46 The Percentage ol Farms with Whlle Ovoruors. by Slze ol Farm I-15 15-50 51-100 Iooonuora Sllvilpot Furfi and on many of these the planters were usually in residence. The continual discussions of problems of plantation man- agement in the agricultural journals of the South were not evidence of the failure of southern planters but of the earnestness with which they approached their tasks. Far from being cavalier fops, the leading planters were, on the Whole, hi hi self—conscious class of entre reneurs who generally approached Efieir governmental responsibilities with deliberation and gravity — a manner which accorded E l with their self-image. They strove to become steeped in the scientific agricultural literature of the day; they organized agricultural societies as a means of disseminating informa:) tion on the “best practices" in various aspects of farming, and in order to encourage experimentation i.n animal hus-