Agriculture

12 Pages 2921 Words

ude hand tools made of wood, sometimes with iron parts. Plows too might have an iron facing on the cutting edge. Planting, weeding, and harvesting were done by hand labor.
Significant changes in farming began to occur at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Between the American Revolution and the Civil War, tens of thousands of farmers surged westward to settle on the rich lands of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. There a grain-livestock empire gradually took shape that was unequaled anywhere in the world. In the South farmers and planters pushed into Alabama and Mississippi and as far west as Texas, establishing a vast cotton kingdom and backcountry of mainly self-sufficient farmers. Agricultural expansion was encouraged by removal of Indians from choice farmlands, liberal public land policies, development of canal and rail transportation, demand for food and fiber in the growing towns and cities, increasing exports, and especially improved farm machinery. One of the greatest advances made in agriculture before the Civil War was the shift from human to animal power and the use of new labor-saving machines. Besides the cotton gin, innovations such as iron and steel plows, reapers, threshing machines, grain drills, corn and cotton planters, and iron harrows and cultivators became common. These implements were drawn by oxen and horses. In 1800, it took fifty-six man-hours to grow (Fite 27).
Meanwhile, agricultural reformers advised farmers to rotate their crops, conserve the soil, use fertilizers, adopt new crops, improve livestock breeds, and use the latest machinery. Although a few farmers practiced soil conservation by rotating crops or growing legumes, they just simply plowed up new lands when the fertility of their fields declined. Of the three main components of production—land, labor, and capital—land was the cheapest, so it made economic sense in the short run to exploit the soil to the fullest (Fite 28).
Farmers c...