The Farmer's Age: Agriculture 1815-1860

by Paul Wallace Gates

Part of a series of detailed reference manuals on American economic history, this volume examines the aspects and problems of land policies and the growth in farming during the mid-1800s.

496 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Paul Wallace Gates (1901–1999) was a professor of history and general historian who is widely considered to be the foremost authority on the history of federal land policy in the United States. Gates wrote 10 books and 75 academic articles, and his magnum opus was History of Public Land Law Development.

Reviews

[pattrice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just speed-read my extensive highlighting from the first time I read this book (before I joined Goodreads) and decided to list it in order to have the opportunity to say this:

This is an absolutely essential reference for anybody who wants to understand (or thinks they already understand) agriculture in the United States. Too often, those who would reform agriculture presume that all was well at some point in the pure rustic past and that all we need to do is get back to those practices or at least the values that informed them. This history shows that, not surprisingly, European immigrants to what would become the United States brought the bad practices that had led to the deforestation of Europe with them. Indeed, even visiting Europeans were appalled by the wreckage and waste wreaked by U.S. farmers in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The seeds of today's agribusiness practices were sown then: monocropping with environmentally inappropriate cash crops, exploitative relationship to natural resources, and cruel mistreatment of animals.

Yes, it's a slog to work your way through the details, state by state and crop by crop. But this book more than repays the effort. Of course, you can skim any details not germane to your area of concern, although I found the story as a whole to be sufficiently fascinating not to do that.

Let's not let history repeat itself by trying to go backward in time to a rural utopia that never was. If we can understand how we got to where we are today -- and this book goes a long way in doing that -- then we will be in a better position to figure out where we want to go and how to get there.

[Jon Price · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating account of agriculture in the US before the Civil War. Covers all regions and crops.

Especially proud of all the references to Lancaster County (my home county) for being one of the best agricultural regions in the U.S.