Evolution of American Agriculture/Chapter VI
CHAPTER VI
Transformation period 1830-1865.
THE THIRTY-FIVE years of this period saw the almost complete transformation of American agriculture from the self-sufficing to the commercial stage, and its record constitutes one of the most remarkable chapters in the economic history of the world.
European agriculture had taken up the breeding of better livestock, improved cultural methods, systems of crop rotation, the growing and feeding of roots, and the use of commercial fertilizers; but, aside from the better livestock, these matters had received but little attention in this country. Agricultural tools had been slightly improved on both sides of the Atlantic, and we have seen the inception of the modern plow but, beyond this, it may be said that prior to 1830 there was not an agricultural machine in common use anywhere in the world.
At the beginning of this period all farm work except plowing, harrowing and carting, was done strictly with hand tools. Agriculture was practically the same as it had been for two thousand years before. Grain was sown broadcast, and harrowed in with a wooden tooth drag or a tree top drawn by oxen. The reaping was done with a cradle and the threshing accomplished with a flail or by driving horses and cattle over the shearer upon a threshing floor. Hay was mown with scythe, and raked and pitched by hand. Corn was planted by hand, and covered and cultivated with a hoe.
Within thirty-five years, in the settled regions and near the avenues of transportation, machinery had displaced the hand tools. Grain was planted largely with the drill, reaped with a machine, and threshed with machinery. Hay was mowed by a machine, raked with a horse-rake, and stacked or lifted into the mow by horse-power. Corn was planted and cultivated by horse-power. The farmers mode of work was completely changed.
The idea of power—horse power—had seized upon the human mind and must be wrought out to its logical conclusion. The plow, the harrow and the cart had been the only implements calling for other than human power, and the slow moving but relatively economical ox had furnished a satisfactory motive force. But when the machines came in with their mechanical ability to perform faster than the ox could travel, the faster moving, more amenable horse and mule came into general use. The horse-power idea came to dominate American agriculture and lifted its production capacity beyond that of any other country in the world.
The influence of the use of machinery was to induce a specialization in crops—the growing of "money crops"—and the purchase of such products as were needed to complete the living on the farm. Home industry after home industry was transferred to the city shops and factories and the farmer limited his efforts to supplying some particular demand. The self-sufficing age went out; the commercial age came in.
Prior to 1830 the South had specialized in cotton, as we have seen before, but the adoption of machinery did not extend into that region. The old hand methods continued on, though the production of cotton was six times greater in 1860 than it was in 1830. This increase was due almost wholly to natural increase for, though immigrants poured into the country by hundreds of thousands, they avoided the South on account of slavery and in 1860 there were only eleven cities of more than 800 population in that whole region.
The near Southern states of Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri engaged largely in the growing of tobacco, a crop the slaves were well adapted to cultivate; but, after all, the negro was not kept to grow the crop; the crop was grown as an excuse for breeding the negro. In 1836 a field hand was worth $600; in 1849 he sold up to $1,000, and in 1860 the prime "nigger" brought $1,400 in the Southwest.
A determining factor in the transformation period was the building of the railroads. There were no roads in operation in 1830, but by 1860 there were 30,000 miles of line, extending into all the territory east of the Missouri River. Fifty thousand miles of telegraph lines were erected between 1844 and 1860, and in 1850 letter postage was three cents for distances under 3,000 miles. The isolation of the colonial and pioneer periods was broken. The markets of the world were nearer and ideas found more room in which to spread.
The European situation also helped the transformation in America. The development of England's manufacturing industries caused a greater demand for foodstuffs and raw materials and induced the repeal of her corn laws. The great Irish potato famine, the rebellions in Continental Europe and the Crimean War increased European dependence upon the United States for food supplies.
At the same time the Eastern states were rapidly developing the manufacturing industries and using a larger food supply. The Pre-emption Law of 1841 stimulated immigration and furnished an easy means for the political refugees from Europe to obtain homes. The immigration from 1840 to 1850 was almost three times as great as in the previous ten years, and the twenty year period, from 1840 to 1860, added more than 4,300,000 immigrants to the population.
By far the most important factor in this transformation was the invention of farm machinery. Manning patented the mowing machine in 1831. Hussey patented a grain reaper in 1833, and McCormick patented a similar machine in 1834. Threshers came into use sometime in the thirties and were combined with the fanning mill before 1850. John Deere made the first steel plow in 1837. The corn planter and the two-horse cultivator came into use during this period, and by 1860 portable steam engines were being used to run the threshers.
The invention of the reaper was one of the greatest events in the history of modern industry and is really deserving of a chapter by itself. Yet it is doubtful if it effected a greater saving in labor than did the corn planter and cultivator when it is considered that corn is our principal crop.
The idea of horse-power not only brought about the invention of labor-saving machines, but it induced the importation and breeding of better, more dependable horses. The Morgan, all-purpose horse, has been mentioned, but it was the importation of the two Percheron horses, Louis Napoleon and Normandy, in 1851, that gave the breeding of draft animals a generous boost in this country. The thoroughbred stallion, Denmark, brought to Kentucky in 1839, became the founder of the breed of American saddle horses.
Hogs continued to multiply with the increase in corn production, the center of hog breeding moving Westward with the corn center and, after 1861, Chicago became the center of the pork-packing industry.
Sheep did not make any proportionate increase during the period, but cattle increased, especially in the West. There was a systematic effort to improve the breeds and the breeding of Shorthorns received a great impulse in 1834 by the organization of the Ohio Company for Importing English Cattle, and before the close of the period some famous bulls brought as high as $5,000 per head.
The settlement of the prairie states caused a considerable decline of agriculture in the East, especially in New England, and by 1840 there was a strong movement of farmers out of that section. General farming in competition with the West was no longer possible but in suitable locations, dairying and market gardening were especially profitable and a movement for the importation of dairy cattle became quite strong. In 1853 there were seventy-five pure bred Jerseys in Massachusetts, also a number of Ayrshires.
Up to 1850 all the butter and cheese of the country was made on the farms, but after that year the cheese factory came into existence, with a consequent standardizing of the product and a very large increase of the business.
The farmers commenced to study farming during this period and the fairs and agricultural societies that had been formed in the previous period were greatly increased and extended. By 1860, every state held an annual agricultural exhibition, and practically every county had its fair. These annual gatherings were not only distinguished for their horse racing and "fist and skull" pugilism, but furnished splendid opportunity for the view of new agricultural machinery, livestock and farm products, and had a powerful influence in stimulating improvements and spreading agricultural knowledge.
A wonderful period! A period in which the annual corn crop increased to almost one billion bushels, and wheat and oats were each above the 170 million bushel mark. In 1860, almost 21 million dollars' worth of agricultural implements were sold to the American farmers. The old, hard method of farming was due for the discard, and along with the new farmer and his vision of agricultural conquest came the farm hand. The Civil War closed this period and the whole country faced a readjustment of its ideas to suit the fact that the industrializing process was invading every avenue by which the people lived.