"Rain Follows the Plow" and Dryfarming Doctrine

Author: Gary D. Libecap
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dry farming
Languages : en
Pages : 73

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Book Description
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the North American agricultural frontier moved for the first time into semi-arid regions where farming was vulnerable to drought. Farmers who migrated to the region had to adapt their crops, techniques, and farm sizes to better fit the environment. But there was very incomplete information for making these adjustments, and ultimately they were insufficient: too many small, dry land wheat farms were founded, only to be abandoned in the midst of drought. In this paper, we examine why homestead failure occurred in the Great Plains, by analyzing two episodes in western Kansas in 1893-94 and in eastern Montana in 1917-21. We focus on the weather information problem facing migrants to the region. We examine the learning process by which migrants mis-interpreted new rainfall information and failed to adequately perceive drought. Homesteaders had neither an analytical framework nor sufficient data for predicting fluctuations in rainfall. Knowledge of the climate was primitive and the underlying mechanisms triggering droughts were not understood. Long-term precipitation records did not exist. Homesteaders gambled on the continuation of previous wet periods due to a possible climate change because of cultivation, and on the optimistic opinions of dryfarming experts.' Dryfarming doctrine argued that moisture could be saved in the soil, allowing small wheat farms to endure any dry period. Accordingly, homesteaders discounted new information that indicated drought. The subsequent waves of homestead busts that swept the region during severe droughts were part of the adjustment toward agricultural techniques, crops, and farm sizes more appropriate for a semi-arid region

"Rain Follows the Plow" and Dryfarming Doctrine

Author: Gary D. Libecap
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dry farming
Languages : en
Pages : 73

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the North American agricultural frontier moved for the first time into semi-arid regions where farming was vulnerable to drought. Farmers who migrated to the region had to adapt their crops, techniques, and farm sizes to better fit the environment. But there was very incomplete information for making these adjustments, and ultimately they were insufficient: too many small, dry land wheat farms were founded, only to be abandoned in the midst of drought. In this paper, we examine why homestead failure occurred in the Great Plains, by analyzing two episodes in western Kansas in 1893-94 and in eastern Montana in 1917-21. We focus on the weather information problem facing migrants to the region. We examine the learning process by which migrants mis-interpreted new rainfall information and failed to adequately perceive drought. Homesteaders had neither an analytical framework nor sufficient data for predicting fluctuations in rainfall. Knowledge of the climate was primitive and the underlying mechanisms triggering droughts were not understood. Long-term precipitation records did not exist. Homesteaders gambled on the continuation of previous wet periods due to a possible climate change because of cultivation, and on the optimistic opinions of dryfarming experts.' Dryfarming doctrine argued that moisture could be saved in the soil, allowing small wheat farms to endure any dry period. Accordingly, homesteaders discounted new information that indicated drought. The subsequent waves of homestead busts that swept the region during severe droughts were part of the adjustment toward agricultural techniques, crops, and farm sizes more appropriate for a semi-arid region

Rain Follows the Plow

Rain Follows the Plow PDF Author: Charles Robert Kutzleb
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Great Plains
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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Book Description


Rain follows the plow

Rain follows the plow PDF Author: Henry Nash Smith
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Rain and rainfall
Languages : en
Pages : 25

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Book Description


How the Other Half Ate

How the Other Half Ate PDF Author: Katherine Leonard Turner
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520277589
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, working-class Americans had eating habits that were distinctly shaped by jobs, families, neighborhoods, and the tools, utilities, and size of their kitchens—along with their cultural heritage. How the Other Half Ate is a deep exploration by historian and lecturer Katherine Turner that delivers an unprecedented and thoroughly researched study of the changing food landscape in American working-class families from industrialization through the 1950s. Relevant to readers across a range of disciplines—history, economics, sociology, urban studies, women’s studies, and food studies—this work fills an important gap in historical literature by illustrating how families experienced food and cooking during the so-called age of abundance. Turner delivers an engaging portrait that shows how America’s working class, in a multitude of ways, has shaped the foods we eat today.

Peace and Friendship

Peace and Friendship PDF Author: Stephen Aron
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019762278X
Category : Indians of North America
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
For over 35 years, the dominant histories of the American West have been narratives of horrific conflicts. As dark and as bloody as western grounds have often been however, there were also important episodes of concord, instances of barriers breached, accords reached, and of people overcoming their differences as opposed to being overcome by them. Peace and Friendship highlights the instances of cohabitation, deepening our understanding of how the West came to be: through colonization, violence, misunderstanding, and, surprisingly, at times, peace.

Mississippi River Tragedies

Mississippi River Tragedies PDF Author: Christine A Klein
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479856169
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Read a free excerpt here! American engineers have done astounding things to bend the Mississippi River to their will: forcing one of its tributaries to flow uphill, transforming over a thousand miles of roiling currents into a placid staircase of water, and wresting the lower half of the river apart from its floodplain. American law has aided and abetted these feats. But despite our best efforts, so-called “natural disasters” continue to strike the Mississippi basin, as raging floodwaters decimate waterfront communities and abandoned towns literally crumble into the Gulf of Mexico. In some places, only the tombstones remain, leaning at odd angles as the underlying soil erodes away. Mississippi River Tragedies reveals that it is seductively deceptive—but horribly misleading—to call such catastrophes “natural.” Authors Christine A. Klein and Sandra B. Zellmer present a sympathetic account of the human dreams, pride, and foibles that got us to this point, weaving together engaging historical narratives and accessible law stories drawn from actual courtroom dramas. The authors deftly uncover the larger story of how the law reflects and even amplifies our ambivalent attitude toward nature—simultaneously revering wild rivers and places for what they are, while working feverishly to change them into something else. Despite their sobering revelations, the authors’ final message is one of hope. Although the acknowledgement of human responsibility for unnatural disasters can lead to blame, guilt, and liability, it can also prod us to confront the consequences of our actions, leading to a liberating sense of possibility and to the knowledge necessary to avoid future disasters.

Stigma Cities

Stigma Cities PDF Author: Jonathan Foster
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806162260
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, a city that he loved, Jonathan Foster was forced to come to grips with its reputation for racial violence. In so doing, he began to question how other cities dealt with similar kinds of stigmas that resulted from behavior and events that fell outside accepted norms. He wanted to know how such stigmas changed over time and how they affected a city’s reputation and residents. Those questions led to this examination of the role of stigma and history in three very different cities: Birmingham, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. In the era of civil rights, Birmingham became known as “Bombingham,” a place of constant reactionary and racist violence. Las Vegas emerged as the nation’s most recognizable Sin City, and San Francisco’s tolerance of homosexuality made it the perceived capital of Gay America. Stigma Cites shows how cultural and political trends influenced perceptions of disrepute in these cities, and how, in turn, their status as sites of vice and violence influenced development decisions, from Birmingham’s efforts to shed its reputation as racist, to San Francisco’s transformation of its stigma into a point of pride, to Las Vegas’s use of gambling to promote tourism and economic growth. The first work to investigate the important effects of stigmatized identities on urban places, Foster’s innovative study suggests that reputation, no less than physical and economic forces, explains how cities develop and why. An absorbing work of history and urban sociology, the book illuminates the significance of perceptions in shaping metropolitan history.

Conservation and Management of Transnational Tuna Fisheries

Conservation and Management of Transnational Tuna Fisheries PDF Author: Robin Allen
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0813805678
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Conservation and Management of Transnational Tuna Fisheries reviews and synthesizes the existing literature, focusing on rights-based management and the creation of economic incentives to manage transnational tuna fisheries. Transnational tuna fisheries are among the most important fisheries in the world, and tuna commissions are increasingly shifting toward this approach. Comprehensively covering the subject, Conservation and Management of Transnational Tuna Fisheries summarizes global experience and offers practical applications for applying rights-based management and the creation of economic incentives, addressing potential problems as well as the total level of capacity. This reference work is divided into four parts, beginning with an overview of the book, including the issues, property rights, and rights-based management. The subsequent sections address issues arising with property rights, discuss bycatch, and cover compliance, enforcement, trade measures, and politics. Written by an expert team of international authors, Conservation and Management of Transnational Tuna Fisheries will appeal to social and fisheries scientists and fishery managers in universities and research institutions, government and non-governmental organizations, fisheries management bodies, members of the fishing industry, and international institutions.

A Country Strange and Far

A Country Strange and Far PDF Author: Michael C. McKenzie
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496229258
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
A Country Strange and Far considers how and why the Methodist Church failed in the Pacific Northwest and how place can affect religious transplantation and growth.

Replenishing the Earth

Replenishing the Earth PDF Author: James Belich
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019161971X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 586

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Book Description
Why are we speaking English? Replenishing the Earth gives a new answer to that question, uncovering a 'settler revolution' that took place from the early nineteenth century that led to the explosive settlement of the American West and its forgotten twin, the British West, comprising the settler dominions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Between 1780 and 1930 the number of English-speakers rocketed from 12 million in 1780 to 200 million, and their wealth and power grew to match. Their secret was not racial, or cultural, or institutional superiority but a resonant intersection of historical changes, including the sudden rise of mass transfer across oceans and mountains, a revolutionary upward shift in attitudes to emigration, the emergence of a settler 'boom mentality', and a late flowering of non-industrial technologies -wind, water, wood, and work animals - especially on settler frontiers. This revolution combined with the Industrial Revolution to transform settlement into something explosive - capable of creating great cities like Chicago and Melbourne and large socio-economies in a single generation. When the great settler booms busted, as they always did, a second pattern set in. Links between the Anglo-wests and their metropolises, London and New York, actually tightened as rising tides of staple products flowed one way and ideas the other. This 're-colonization' re-integrated Greater America and Greater Britain, bulking them out to become the superpowers of their day. The 'Settler Revolution' was not exclusive to the Anglophone countries - Argentina, Siberia, and Manchuria also experienced it. But it was the Anglophone settlers who managed to integrate frontier and metropolis most successfully, and it was this that gave them the impetus and the material power to provide the world's leading super-powers for the last 200 years. This book will reshape understandings of American, British, and British dominion histories in the long 19th century. It is a story that has such crucial implications for the histories of settler societies, the homelands that spawned them, and the indigenous peoples who resisted them, that their full histories cannot be written without it.