Current Issue
"The Wichita Valley Irrigation Project: Joseph Kemp, Boosterism, and Conservation in Northwest Texas, 1886–1939" by Jahue Anderson
This is the story of failure: in this case, an irrigation project that never met its boosters’ expectations. Between 1880 and 1930 Wichita Falls entrepreneur Joseph Kemp dreamed of an agrarian Eden on the Texas rolling plains. Kemp promoted reclamation and conservation and envisioned the Big Wichita River Valley as the “Irrigated Valley.” But the process of bringing dams and irrigation ditches to the Big Wichita River ignored knowledge of the river and local environment, which ultimately was key to making these complex systems work. The boosters faced serious ecological limitations and political obstacles in their efforts to conquer water, accomplishing only parts of the grandiose vision. Ultimately, salty waters and poor drainage doomed the project. While the livestock industry survived and the oil business thrived in the subsequent decades, the dream of idyllic irrigated farmsteads slowly disappeared.
"The Southern Great Plains Wind Erosion Maps of 1936–1937" by Geoff Cunfer
Take a closer look at the images from this article.In 1936–1937 the US Soil Conservation Service conducted a reconnaissance survey of the Dust Bowl, the area of worst wind erosion on the southern Great Plains. Providing farm-level detail and covering twenty-six counties in five states—some twenty-seven million acres or forty-two thousand square miles—this survey represents our best record of land use and soil erosion at the peak of the 1930s crisis. The project generated well-designed and information- rich maps for each county, but their graphic nature and large size has left them virtually unknown to agricultural and environmental historians of the Dust Bowl. The Historical Geographic Information Systems Laboratory at the University of Saskatchewan has now digitized these maps and built an HGIS that will allow analysis of this information for the first time in seventy-five years.
"The Paradox of Plows and Productivity: An Agronomic Comparison of Cereal Grain Production under Iroquois Hoe Culture and European Plow Culture in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries" by Jane Mt. Pleasant
Iroquois maize farmers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries produced three to five times more grain per acre than wheat farmers in Europe. The higher productivity of Iroquois agriculture can be attributed to two factors. First, the absence of plows in the western hemisphere allowed Iroquois farmers to maintain high levels of soil organic matter, critical for grain yields. Second, maize has a higher yield potential than wheat because of its C4 photosynthetic pathway and lower protein content. However, tillage alone accounted for a significant portion of the yield advantage of the Iroquois farmers. When the Iroquois were removed from their territories at the end of the eighteenth century, US farmers occupied and plowed these lands. Within fifty years, maize yields in five counties of western New York dropped to less than thirty bushels per acre. They rebounded when US farmers adopted practices that countered the harmful effects of plowing.
"Farm Youth and Progressive Agricultural Reform: Dexter D. Mayne and the Farm Boy Cavaliers of America" by Pamela Riney-Kehrberg
In the early years of the twentieth century, rural America faced a population crisis as young people increasingly left farms for cities. Progressive reformers responded to this crisis with various suggestions meant to more firmly attach youngsters to their rural roots. Among the many solutions advocated were rural youth organizations. The Farm Boy Cavaliers of America, which also enrolled girls, pursued a more innovative path than most, emphasizing not only entertainment and instruction, but also a high degree of economic education and independence for farm children. The program offered an alternative to the Boy Scouts, which Dexter D. Mayne, the organization’s founder, believed to be unsatisfactory and inappropriate for farm youth. Ultimately, the organization may have promoted too much freedom for the rural youth, advocating behavior that parents could not approve of or afford in the cash-strapped early days of the century.
"'No Place For Class Politics': The Country Life Commission and Immigration" by Christopher W. Shaw
In 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt formed the Country Life Commission to address contemporary concerns over the state of rural America. One of the issues that commissioners planned to address provoked an internal impasse: the relationship of immigration to agriculture. Charles S. Barrett, president of the Farmers Educational and Co-operative Union, insisted upon removing a section of the commission’s report that raised the possibility of settling immigrants in rural areas. His organization was actively pursuing political partnership with the American Federation of Labor. Barrett forced fellow commissioners to confront the existence of a rift between small farmers and organized labor on the one hand, and large agricultural and business interests on the other. The commission’s encounter with immigration is emblematic of its general hesitancy to address issues arising from economic divisions.
