1.9 Developments in Agriculture

Question 1

How did the population in rural areas change?

Answer 1

Well over half the population lived in rural areas, and the number of people living on farms rose from about 10 million in 1865 to 25 million by 1890.

Question 2

What changes in agriculture was there as a result of industrialisation?

Answer 2

The population grew, and the railroads expanded, more and more land was brought under cultivation; the number of farms doubled.

Question 3

What government actions encouraged the development of agriculture?

Answer 3

The Homestead Act of 1862 made hundreds of thousands of acres available as free land to settlers. People could claim 160 acres of land if they farmed in for 5 years.

Question 4

How did the railroad companies make big profits from Westward expansion?

Answer 4

They bought up large tracts of land and sold the land to settlers.

Question 5

How did the scale of farms change during this period?

Answer 5

In 1865 most farms were small, household farms but there was a steady increase in large-scale commercial agriculture and the development of new markets.

Question 6

What helped developments in agriculture?

Answer 6

Technological advances, such as refrigeration, and the development of new machinery, such as reapers, threshers, and wire binders. the Department of Agriculture carried out research and encouraged the spread of agricultural colleges.

Question 7

What problems did farmers face?

Answer 7

They had little control over prices and depended more and more on finance from banks, railroad companies, and local merchants, both for investment and for getting their produce to distant markets. They were very vulnerable to the fluctuations of the market, as was shown by the period of depression that followed the financial Panic of 1873.

Question 8

What caused the Panic of 1873?

Answer 8

The rapid economic expansion of the US outstripped the system of banking and finance. Both agriculture and industry depended on investment and loans in order to expand and innovate; but banks were mostly small, did not have enough money in reserve, and frequently went broke. There was little or no regulation and a lot of wild financial speculation. It was this kind of speculation, especially on railroads, that led to a nationwide financial crash.

Question 9

What happened during the Panic of 1873?

Answer 9

Stock market prices collapsed (which affected Europe as well as the US), many banks failed, and economic enterprises were badly hit, leading to years of economic depression.

Question 10

What did agriculture benefit from in the North and the East?

Answer 10

The expanding markets in the growing towns and cities.

Question 11

What are examples of expanding markets in towns and cities in the North?

Answer 11

By the 1880s, cities like Chicago and Pittsburgh were the hubs of a wide distribution network, shipping meat products, cereals, and canned foods to the urban Northeast, and timber for construction on the treeless Great Plains. Wisconsin was a centre of large-scale dairy production.

Question 12

What was the problem with railroads in relation to expanding markets in the North?

Answer 12

The railroad companies had monopoly power and set freight rates as high as they pleased.

Question 13

How did small farmers struggle in the South?

Answer 13

They were often unable to buy or to keep their own land and falling back into being tenant farmers. They struggled to gain access to loans, or to get their produce to market directly, without being controlled and exploited by larger businesses.

Question 14

What economic development was there in the ‘New South’?

Answer 14

There was railroad expansion, and cotton, tobacco, and sugar remained major commodities for export. Trade and shipping expanded in ports like Mobile in Alabama, Charleston in South Carolina, and New Orleans in Louisiana.

Question 15

What problems were there with Southern agriculture?

Answer 15

Like the economy generally, it lagged behind the rest of the country. Few immigrants were tempted to settle in the South; in 1879, thousands of black farmers moved away to Kansas in search of greater opportunities.

Question 16

When was the first transcontinental railroad completed?

Answer 16

The Union Pacific was completed in 1869.

Question 17

When was the conquest and colonisation of Native American lands virtually complete?

Answer 17

By 1877.

Question 18

What were the vast open lands of the West filled by?

Answer 18

Railroads, ranches, farms, and mining towns.

Question 19

How did the number of farms in Missouri change between 1870 and 1890?

Answer 19

There were about 150,000 farms in 1870 and nearly 300,000 by 1890. The number of farms nearly doubled.

Question 20

What was the Oklahoma land rush?

Answer 20

Congress granted two million acres of formerly Indian lands as free land for homesteads. The race into the new territory began on 22 April 1889. Six thousand new land claims were registered in two months.

Question 21

What role did the railroads play in the Oklahoma Land Rush?

Answer 21

They transported the homesteaders westward, lent them money to acquire land, and then took cash crops such as wheat in return.

Question 22

How did the population in the West change between 1860 and 1890?

Answer 22

In 1860, there were 760,000 residents in the WEstern states of the Great Plains, the Mountain WEst, and the Pacific West. By 1890, the total was more than 6 million. the total Native American population in 1860 was estimated at about 500,000; this figure had almost halved by 1890.

Question 23

What role did steel have in development in agriculture?

Answer 23

Steel plough broke through the hard crust of the prairie grasslands to get to the rich soil underneath. The miles and miles of steel barbed wire fenced off the open spaces. The steel rails of the network of railroads spread across the West. The steel barrels of the repeating rifles were used to wipe out millions of bison by buffalo hunters that had been the basis of Native American life.

Question 24

What difficulties did farmers in the West face in the 1870s and 1880s?

Answer 24

The climate was harsh and prone to natural disasters such as drought and grasshopper infestation. many farms were on marginal, unproductive land. Prices fluctuated, sometimes wildly upwards, like in the sudden boom on wheat prices in the mid 1870s; sometimes wildly downwards, as in the years of drought from 1887.

Question 25

What was the Years of Drought?

Answer 25

The early rush to establish farms west of the Mississippi in the 1870s and 1880s coincided with an extended period of above-average annual rainfall. This gave a misleading impression of the prospects for farming productivity, especially on higher ground away from the river valleys. In 1887 the rains failed, beginning several years of drought conditions. This was seen as a temporary disaster; in fact it was just climatic conditions returning to normal. Many farmers became bankrupt and moved back east.

Question 26

What group were particularly vulnerable to being in debt?

Answer 26

White tenant farmers in the South

Question 27

What was the overall success of agriculture?

Answer 27

Agriculture prices fell through most of this period. Farmers increasingly relied on loans that they found hard to obtain and also hard to repay. Levels of investment were low and methods of farming on small farmers were often inefficient.

Question 28

What cash crop was the South overly dependent on?

Answer 28

Cotton, thus agriculture was significantly impacted by the ending of slavery.