Larding the Lean Earth: Soil and Society in Nineteenth-Century America

by Steven Stoll

A Major History of Early Americans' Ideas about Conservation

Fifty years after the Revolution, American farmers faced a crisis: the failing soils of the Atlantic states threatened the agricultural prosperity upon which the republic was founded. Larding the Lean Earth explores the tempestuous debates that erupted between "improvers," intent on sustaining the soil of existing farms, and "emigrants," who thought it wiser and more "American" to move westward as the soil gave out. Larding the Lean Earth is a signal work of environmental history and an original contribution to the study of antebellum America.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Agriculture, Food

287 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steven Stoll takes an unusual path into environmental and agricultural history by focusing his text on the period between the American Revolution and the Civil War in which the subject of improvement--the restoration of landscapes previously exhausted by colonial farming--became a point of contentious and passionate debate across industries and regions in the US. Over three meaty but easily readable sections Stoll looks closely at the methods by which farmers adjusted their practices to restore soil health, fight erosion, and enrich agricultural lands brings major questions about emigration and industry, labor and science, and regional political beliefs and industrial practices into contrast with each other. In particular he uses the issue of two states--Pennsylvania and South Carolina--to look at the emerging rhetoric of waste, agriculture for financial gain versus personal sustenance, and the seeming irreconcilability of North vs. South farming practices. Key to the negotiation of these practices are the questions of whether farmers are meant to follow the land and its needs (and treat it as a source of cyclical regeneration rather than of constant extraction) or master its possibilities and thus abandon it for richer landscapes and faster profits. Within each farmer's set of choices is the constant temptation and threat of emigration, of transience that many in the era believe was detrimental to the development of the American economy and way of life.

In a text so centered on the values and debates of rural life, it is surprising that Stoll does not dedicate more time or attention to the emergence of urban industrialization as part of the push toward migration (though he does add valuable discussion of how farming regions became intertwined with affiliated industrial systems, such as the industries of sheep-rearing and textiles manufacturing). Particularly as so many other texts of rural studies hold up the disappearance of rural life as a loss of a particular kind of American virtue, it is surprising that Stoll is so restrained in his hagiography. Particularly this is because he is more interested in the loss of a particular kind of civic-minded, environmentally-conscious rural culture, rather than the loss of rural culture en toto. Nevertheless, this is a fascinating book, and I would be especially inclined to use Part I (about the challenges of the improvement in the early Republic) as a key text in a course on environmental history.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a terrific book. Its ostensible subject is the imporvement movements that took place in the early to mid-nineteenth century as farmers came to realize that their practices were destroying soil fertility. But while the book is a splendid evocation of that era, Stoll is also unafraid to draw parallels to today's situation, which makes this truly a book with a powerful and relevant message.

[Zachary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book that addresses an issue/part of the country that is usually overlooked: the eastern states' reaction to outmigration and fears of degeneration in regards to soil. Larding mixes agroscience with history. The book charts the rise of the "Improvement" movement during the 1820-30s which sought to create a more sustainable ethic in regards land use. This concern arose from outward migration, which was due to supposed depletion/overuse of soils (the tablecloth of civilization). Americans idolized British husbandry techniques, and this coalesced with an 1830-40s optimism about nature and pessimism about rapacity of culture. This anxiety led to reforms for this brief period in the east.

Stoll looks at the Improvement movement in PA and SC. In Pennsylvania, farmers fretted over how to make the land pay as returns were diminishing. One of the more popular results was a movement to sheep as a way to make money. This made these farmers more closely tied to mills/manufactures, and more supportive of the 1820s tariff that pissed off the South.

In South Carolina, men like Edward Ruffin advocated new technology called "marl" which was basically instead of mixed husbandry which involved putting in what you take out by moving cattle/manure, you buy a chemical mix that restores potassium and nitrogen to the soil. I like how Stoll shows how Northerners mistook southern crop rotations as wasteful (128) because it was a much larger scale that rotated much slower, but actually more stable b/c the land got less intensive use. Stoll shows how slaveowners lacked the patience to try this new system by the 1850s. Their notions of sustainable/responsible land use wasn't relevant in the early 19th century when expansion was the watchword, especially the expansion of slavery. Stoll suggests that SC was too tied to the institution of slavery to try flexible reform.

Even though this movement was a dud, Stoll thinks it's important because it's tenets were picked up in the early 20th century when the land ran out, with people like Teddy Roosevelt being influenced by George Perkins Marsh's Man and Nature. This book bridges the image of the idyllic yeoman in American culture with the harsh realities of capitalization evoked by Cronon in Nature's Metropolis-emerging urban bourgeois like images of unrealistic past. Maybe unlike Cronon, where farms and cities become closer, culturally they were pulling apart (alienation). Basically Stoll suggests that farming in North America was sustainable for a brief glimpse of time in certain places in the east, but this vision of benign agriculture, cooperating with the environment instead of dominating it, occurred at the wrong time in US history. I really liked his suggestion that Amish agriculture is sustainable, modestly profitable, and might be a model for "postmodern" agriculture.

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an ambitious history of early Americans' ideas about conservation. During the 1820s/30s/40s, Americans saw their soil failing and their agricultural prosperity threatened. Steven Stoll's depicts the two strains of response: "improvers" wanted to sustain and better the soil of existing farms while "emigrants" encouraged American farmers to move westward as the soil gave out. Examining dozens of journals from New York to Virginia (and two groups of farmers, in Pennsylvania and South Carolina), Stoll shows that the improvers' were manure (dung) centric in their beliefs for how to remedy the agricultural crisis. He also ties the crisis into the Civil War and the slave question. The first shot at Fort Sumter was by a farmer who "couldn't afford to lose his slaves" on addition to the failed improvements of "new husbandry." Thus, the war was in part desperation of the agricultural-dependent South being neglected by the North (at least in part--not convincing that this is a radical contribution but somewhat significant perhaps).

Farming has always been the human activity that most disrupts nature, for good or ill. The decisions these early Americans made about how to farm not only expressed their political and social faith, but also influenced American attitudes about the environment for decades to come. Larding the Lean Earth is a signal work of environmental history and an original contribution to the study of antebellum America.”

[Kristi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stroll makes a case for"agricultural improvement" of the 19th century as precursors to the American land conservation movement later in the century. Improvement is socially and politically diametric to the advocates of Manifest Destiny and westward emigration to "virgin" land, when the occupied land tired. Stroll situates soil as a central cultural artifact of American culture. Stroll's intensive use if farming publications and his ability to tie improvement advocates into the broader social and political context is commendable. I particularly appreciated his social, political, and economic distinction of Antebellum states united verses emphasis on national union after the Civil War. One caveat is the possible implication that improvement advocates were anti-expansionist, when the two objectives were not necessarily mutually exclusive; objectives varied. Also, didn't find the conservation facet overly compelling, as it seemed the motivations for improving the land had more to do with the valuable use of the land, than the value of the land in and of itself.; I think this book is more appropriately about responsible and sustainable land use than "conservation" as we understand it in terms of preservation. This book would be of interest to those interested in ecological or agricultural history, as well as early American history.

[Anne Thessen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading for class...

[Forestofglory · Rating 2 out of 5]

This had lot interesting ideas related to things I care about (such as the beginnings of industrial agriculture, and how people thought about nature) but the arguments never really gelled for me. Also I wanted the author to come out an condemn slavery as the evil it was but he never quite did and that bugged me.