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| I have always had an "obsession" with listening to, learning about, or what ever you call it, about these large operations and the who what when and where. Not for admiration, or information, I just enjoy the topic. Many many large operators came down here in the 60's and 70's on the land clearing binge, some stayed. Those that are still here are very successful. The rest had their clocks cleaned. Usually cleared the land, picked the chuncks, got it in shape only to go broke and have it ready for the next one that came along. Several big operations came out of those times, most have changed names and owners many times. Name that come to mind:
Louisiana Delta Plantation, was around 86K all under one management, but know is all broken up (Mossy Oak, Bill Gates/Winfrey) are some owners
Angelina Plantation, 38K, supposedly owned by Bill Gates and Oprah
Chicago Mills, BIG, but alot of timber, 27K? in ag, Singer sewing machine owned it. Close to 100K early
Deltic Was some kind of compliation of ground, lots of it, spread out
One closest to me was what we called the log road tract. About 17K acres, down to about 2500 now.
Couple more in the 5-8K acre range of single tracts, one owner, mostly all now in CRP, WRP, and hunting lodges.
Alot of this ground was put together from land given to railroads by the gov't in exchange for building railroads, and the rails leased it cheap. Some was at a dollar for three years in exchange for the clearing and cleaning, then $20/ac/yr for 10 yrs and was highly productive, yet tough to farm, flooded, weeds were incredibly bad, stumps and chunks were ever present, equipment was small, storage space was limited, and the management was limited also.
The 80's came, the land was run down, different tenants every year, until much wasn't farmed then the land flipping started,and CRP took over. Land that was a tough sell for 250-400/ac in the early 90's, now is going for 3-4K, in weeds and trees for recreation.
Sorry to hijack the post,
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OLD farm journal/successful farming mag.
