I'm interested in your distinction between "plantation" and "farm," because I don't think I've ever seen the word "farm" in pre-Revolution northern Virginia deeds, road orders, or wills, only "plantation." I had assumed that "plantation" in such records was a generic term for cultivated land regardless of crop, size, etc--at least that's how it seemed to be used.
  
There's this example from a 1710 document regarding the distribution of land to the Huguenot refugees of Manakin. Here again "plantation" seems just to mean "farm"  or even simply a piece of land that could be farmed:
  
"And it is further Ordered, that such of the French Refugees as have bought the Plantations, or dividents of any other of the said Nation in the first 5,000 Acres, shall have and enjoy the same without prejudice to such Purchaser, to hold the Land due to him for his own share, and to take up as much more as will make his said Share the Compleat quantity of 133 Acres. [R. A. Brock's Huguenot Documents] 
  
Could it be that, at least early on, the use of "plantation" differed depending on the context--a kind of value-neutral "place of planting" for a land or court record versus a social situation with cultural and class implications of heirarchy? Or have I misunderstood the records?
   
  Joan Horsley
  
Harold Gill <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
  Plantations in Virginia produced a staple crop such as tobacco while farms 
produced provisions such as corn, wheat, and other grains.William Nelson 
wrote that his son Hugh converted one of his plantations to a farm for 
growing provisions instead of tobacco. John Adams wrote in Feb. 1777: "The 
Planters are those who raise Tobacco and the Farmers such as raise Wheat 
&c." This distinction seems to have been normal in 18th century Virginia.
HBG