Varies from a few hundred to several thousand. Generally thousand or more.

Technically it goes back to being a commercial farm vs family subsistence farm. Commercial is the plantation and even today a plantation is largely a commercial enterprise even if there are no row crops on the place.

But even the dirt farms like my own homeplace had to be partly commercial with something that could be sold for cash. In my great grand daddies case that was a forty acres of cotton, hogs and cows in the woods, a couple chicken houses and vegetable and cane patches. The corn was for the stock and meal.

The cotton was the yearly cash crop, eggs and vegetables got hauled eight miles into town on Saturday. Every so often drovers came through working up a herd of cattle to drive to Mobile or Pensacola so cattle might be sold. Hogs went into the smokehouse and hams sold in town. Everyone in the community grew cane and was squeezed and cooked on our place because he owned the mill another fellow owned the copper pan. The two of them kept a toll for milling and cooking and everyone went home with syrup based on what they brought. The extra toll was also hauled into town.

Also depends on area. None of the county I'm speaking of would be called plantation as none of it was plantation land back in the pre war days. If it is now its new marketing.

But one county over on the flat Alabama River bottomland plantations were everywhere.

Biggest difference was whether the landowner himself spent his day staring at the arse end of a mule.

Plantations here can range from 2500ac to 7000ac. We joke about owners being millionaires vs billionaires. Millionaires have lots of pines for money. Billionaires have very few pines and just lots of cover. And these are mostly all private wild bird plantations. They are huntable through recommendations. Generally start out about $3000-$5000 a day. I know of one plantation that leases out an entire week of whatever you want to hunt for about $150-200K. And they have a group that comes every year, lol. These guys bring $100k shotguns to use as well, lol.