Cargoes and Harvests

by Donald Culross Peattie

Cargoes and Harvests, famed naturalist Donald Culross Peattie’s first book, eloquently explores agriculture and trade within America’s past using thoughtful language that is well ahead of its time. Originally published in 1926, Peattie takes readers on a compelling adventure through the socioeconomic histories of staples such as tea, coffee, cocoa, potatoes and tobacco. Starting with the seeds and roots of the American landscape, Cargoes and Harvests illustrates where we’ve been and how far we’ve come. By considering the relationship between a nation and its goods, Peattie unearths countless reflective implications that still resonate within the field of American agriculture today.

Genres: Nature

324 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 10, 2013

About the author

Donald Culross Peattie was a U.S. botanist, naturalist and author. He was described by Joseph Wood Krutch as "perhaps the most widely read of all contemporary American nature writers" during his heyday. He was nature columnist for the The Washington Star from 1924 to 1935.
His nature writings are distinguished by a poetic and philosophical cast of mind and are scientifically scrupulous. His best known works are the two books (out of a planned trilogy) on North American trees which he wrote in the late 1940s and early '50s. These were published as a single volume for the first time in April 2007 as A Natural History of North American Trees. (Unfortunately, this hardbound volume reduces the two books' original 257 mini-essays to only 112 and includes only 135 of Paul Landacre's original 365 woodcut illustrations.)

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

"To the marvelous work of plant breeding and plant introduction nearly all peoples have contributed more or less. Such a contribution exceeds in practical importance many other forms of culture often ranked higher. A people's language may perish, their religion be forsaken, their precious works of art be broken or forgotten, and even their blood lost by intermixture with other race, but what they have done for agriculture remains their eternal contribution to human life. Historians, anthropologists and others often assign insufficient credit to races which have done so much for the world at large. The study of ancient and even the archaeologic history of agriculture is not only full of fascination and speculation; it is fraught with solutions of modern problems in this day when new demands are arising and fresh viewpoints are needed."

-Peattie, Cargoes and Harvests

Fascinating look into the history of plants that have changed the course of history, including many that aren't at the front of our minds today (e.g., vegetable dyes, quinine). One of those books that covers patterns over time rather than discrete historical events (although Peattie patterns it with anecdotes) and thus gives a sweeping view of change. Living in an era when everything is so digitally-focused and many plant products are synthesized, it's easy to forget how societies rose and fell based on the whims of seasons and whether they could procure seeds of new plants.

Read with an eye to the year this book was written - 1926. The "Great War" was still WW1; Peattie was obviously ahead of his time but was still authoring in an era where racism, sexism, and classism were normal and accepted. That said, this book also brings to life things less often talked about today: how slavery in the US almost ended as tobacco markets shifted and then was only revitalized because of the emergence of cotton; how many other places in the world other forms of slavery (rubber slavery, camphor slavery, spice slavery, etc.) were imposed.

It was fascinating to see how history repeats itself. Peattie shares how, during the Civil War, the North blockaded the South to prevent the South from shipping cotton to England. The people in England whose livelihoods depended on cotton demanded their government help remove the blockade to keep the cotton mills running - had England done so, it's likely the South would have won the civil war. It calls to mind the current war in Ukraine and how life around the world will be affected by rising costs of wheat and oil. Like the English mill workers in the 1860's, will Americans call for an end to support for Ukraine because our own costs are rising? We talk of the opioid crisis today, but the poppy/opium crisis has for centuries created similar problems for countries across the globe, never fully extinguished because the profits to be wrung from it are so enticing to traders and governments.

Short, quick chapters; best read by anyone interested in history, economics, or agriculture.

[Rich Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fluid but dated prose explores the origins and prospects of the most important global crops as they appeared a hundred years ago.

[Carol Collins]

1926, first edition