Editing Plantation (section)

{{Short description|Farm for cash crops}}
'''Plantations''' are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on.  Plantations, centered on a [[plantation house]], grow crops including [[cotton]], [[cannabis]], [[tobacco]], [[coffee]], [[tea]], [[cocoa bean|cocoa]], [[sugar cane]], [[opium]], [[sisal]], [[oil seeds]], [[oil palm]]s, fruits, [[Hevea brasiliensis|rubber trees]] and forest trees. [[Protectionism|Protectionist]] policies and natural [[comparative advantage]] have sometimes contributed to determining where plantations are located.

In modern use, the term usually refers only to large-scale estates. Before about 1860, it was the usual term for a farm of any size in the southern parts of [[British North America]], with, as [[Noah Webster]] noted, "farm" becoming the usual term from about [[Maryland]] northward. The [[Slavery in the United States|enslavement]] of people was the norm in Maryland and states southward. The plantations there were forced-labor farms. The term "plantation" was used in most British colonies but very rarely in the United Kingdom itself in this sense. There it was used mainly for [[tree plantation]]s, areas artificially planted with trees, whether purely for commercial [[forestry]], or partly for ornamental effect in gardens and parks, when it might also cover plantings of garden shrubs.<ref>[https://heald.nga.gov/mediawiki/index.php/Plantation "Plantation"] in the ''History of Early American Landscape Design'', Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art (Washington DC).</ref>

Among the earliest examples of plantations were the [[latifundia]] of the [[Roman Empire]], which produced large quantities of grain, wine, and olive oil for export. Plantation agriculture proliferated with the increase in international trade and the development of a [[Globalisation|worldwide economy]] that followed the expansion of [[Colonialism|European colonialism]].