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

Lois Green Carr and Russell R. Menard

The Journal of Economic History, 1989, vol. 49, issue 2, 407-418

Abstract: 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.

Date: 1989
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