My old Webster has for plantation: 1: a usu. large group of plants and esp. trees under cultivation 2: a settlement in a new country or region : COLONY < PLYMOUTH PLANTATION 3 a: a place that is planted or under cultivation b: an agricultural estate usu. worked by resident labor under central direction. My ancestor in his will which he wrote in 1838, he died in 1843 and will was proved then....he said "the plantation on which I now live I give...." Well, as near as I can figure, it was around 225 acres more or less. I think plantation is just an early name - used especially in the south - for a family farm. This man did not have that much land, and he had no slaves, so he and his sons apparently had farmed it on their own. Mary