Economic History of American Agriculture |
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acres Agric agriculture Amer American average bushels capital Carolina cattle Census cent cereal chaps coal colonies colonists Coman commerce corn cotton culture cotton-growing cultivation dairy demand early Econ Economic History Eighth Census 1860 ELI WHITNEY England Europe exports extension of cotton farm machinery farmer fertile FLATBOAT flour forests free labor grain Granger Movement growing growth hand harvesting Hist hogs Homestead Act horses implements important improved increased Indian industry invention large plantation live stock machines manufactures ment methods MEXICAN CESSION Mississippi Mississippi River movement Negroes North Ohio Orleans period planters plants plow population pounds production of cotton public lands purchase raised rapid reapers region result rice rivers settlement settlers Shaler slave labor slave-trade slavery small farms soil South South Carolina southern square miles supply tion tobacco trade transportation United Virginia W. E. B. Du Bois wealth West westward wheat
Popular passages
Page 67 - This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating American character. The true point of view in the history of this nation is not the Atlantic coast, it is the Great West.
Page 114 - It protects the Government, it fills the States with homes, it builds up communities, and lessens the chances of social and civil disorder by giving ownership of the soil, in small tracts, to the occupants thereof.
Page 55 - Generally, in all the western settlements, three classes, like the waves of the ocean, have rolled one after the other. First comes the pioneer, who depends for the subsistence of his family chiefly upon the natural growth of vegetation, called the "range," and the proceeds of hunting. His implements of agriculture are rude, chiefly of his own make, and his efforts directed mainly to a crop of corn and a "truck patch.
Page 55 - The preemption law enables him to dispose of his cabin and cornfield to the next class of emigrants; and, to employ his own figures, he "breaks for the high timber," "clears out for the New Purchase," or migrates to Arkansas or Texas, to work the same process over.
Page 61 - At every village we find from ten to twelve flat-bottom boats, which besides corn on the ear, pork, bacon, flour, whiskey, cattle and fowls, have a great assortment of notions from Cincinnati and elsewhere. Among these are corn brooms, cabinet furniture, cider, plows, apples, cordage, etc. They remain in one place until all is sold out, if the demand be brisk; if not, they move farther down. After all is sold out they dispose of their boat, and return with the crews by the steamers to their homes.
Page 3 - Water power — In connection with the extractive industries should be mentioned the amount of water power available for industrial use in the United States. In colonial days this was of chief importance and determined the location of many a town. With the invention of the steam engine and the use of coal as a motive power, industry became less dependent upon water power, but with the rise of electrical appliances and the harnessing of our streams and falls for their service, the value of this item...
Page 1 - In the territory now included in the United States, a virile, energetic people found extraordinary opportunities for industrial development, and devoted themselves to the exploitation of the natural resources with wonderful success. The keynote of the national history of the United States is to be found in this work of winning a continent from nature and subduing it to the uses of man. A truly gigantic task, it has absorbed the main energies of the American people from the beginning, and has been...
Page 21 - They make scarce any manure for their corn fields, he says; but when one piece of ground has been exhausted by continual cropping, they clear and cultivate another piece of fresh land; and when that is exhausted, proceed to a third. Their cattle are allowed to wander through the woods and...
Page 81 - By the improved plow, labor equivalent to that of one horse in three is saved. By means of drills two bushels of seed will go as far as three bushels scattered broadcast, while the yield is increased six to eight bushels per acre; the plants come up in rows and may be tended by horse-hoes. . . . The reaping machine is a saving of more than one-third the labor when it cuts and rakes. . . . The threshing machine is a saving of two-thirds on the old hand flail mode. . . . The saving in the labor of...
Page 90 - All the fruit I saw exposed for sale in Cincinnati was most miserable. I passed two summers there, but never tasted a peach worth eating. Of apricots and nectarines I saw none ; strawberries very small, raspberries much worse ; gooseberries very few and quite uneatable ; currants about half the size of ours, and...