Soil Exhaustion as a Factor in the Agricultural History of Virginia and Maryland, 1606-1860

Avery Odelle Craven's 1926 book examined the abusive relationship between southern planters and their most valuable resource, the land, from the founding of Jamestown to the Civil War. He addressed the contributing factors of a staple-crop economy (tobacco), colonialism, slavery and Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis.

Outline:

1. Soil fertility and soil exhaustion
2. The Colonial period, 1606-1783
3. The Post-Revolutionary period, 1783-1820
4. The Agricultural Revival ,1820-1860
5. Summary and conclusions

Timeline:
1607 - Jamestown settlement
1614 - The first sample of tobacco sent to England by John Rolfe
1662 - Moratorium of planting tobacco denied by England
1667 - Major flood
1685 - Major flood
1733 - Council of Burgesses petition "The Case of the Planters of Tobacco in Virginia"
1771 - Major flood
1791 - Washington completes survey of agriculture
1803 - John Taylor began publication of his essays on agriculuture
1814 - Arator published by Taylor
1817 - Albemarle Agricultural Society formed
1819 - American Farmer started publication
1832 - Edmund Ruffin publishes 1st edition of An Essay on Calcareous Manures

Notes:

Chapter 1 - Soil fertility and soil exhaustion

"They fall into error when they assume that southern practices were unique and arose from peculaitly southern characteristics and institutions" p. 11

"Washing is not serious while lands are forested, and streams issuing from the woodland bear little sediment, but when the trees are cut and the surface disturbed, then losses begin." p. 16

"Frontier communities are, by their very nature, notorius exhausters of their soils." p. 19

Factors in soil exhaustion:

• physical conditions favoring erosion
• frontier economy (need for cash crop - tobacco; land abundance; labor and capital scarce)
• markets and governmental regulations kept the economy agricultural
• fixed habits that could not be easily changed
• low profits limited improvements
• whole society built upon exploitative agriculture

Chapter 2 - The Colonial period, 1606-1783

"Originally the larger parts of both states was heavily forested and had to be cleared for cultivation could take place - a task so slow and difficult that much of the region was always in timber. Trees grew rapidly and when cultivated lands were abandoned, the forest returned again in a period of a few years. Travelers passing through what appeared to be virgin forest were often surprised to discover the scars of former cultivation and to learn that they were crossing what some twenty years earlier was a tobacco field." pp. 26-27

Advantages of tobacco as a cash crop (pp. 30-31):

• high yield per acre; scarce labor could be concentrated on a few acres
• good keeping qualities
• low weight for shipping
• labor for growing season cultivation could be used for land clearing in winter

"Tobacco growing and land clearing went hand in hand . . ." p. 31

"The planter seldom counted on more than three or four crops from his land before it was abandoned to corn and wheat and then to the pine, sedge and sorrell growths which usually characterized 'sour lands'." p. 32

Tobacco was attended by hand labor and much travel was by water; so the need for horses was not great. Hogs and cattle were purely local commodities and little investment and provision was made for either. So, the tobacco economy had relatively few cattle or horses; few of the associated barns, yards and pastures; and a low supply of manure. (p. 33)

The hoe and hand labor resulting in nearly continuous shallow cultivation keeping the soil clean and loose on the surface. Deeper plowing did not come until late in the colonial period, and shallow cultivation predominated even then. Continuous shallow cultivation and hardpans facilitated erosion. (p. 35)

Corn was shallow cultivated as well, and " ... it added to the work of erosion by introducing a system of cross plowing". (p.36)

Corn was considered an even more exhausting crop than tobacco. (p.36)

English laws and regulations imposed (1) a requirement that all tobacco be shipped only to England, and (2) a duty to the Crown for all tobacco entering England.

"This placed a premium on the raising of high-grade tobacco and the use of only the most fertile fields." (p. 44)

"The eighteenth century saw the large estate grow even larger and the great planter assume an even more dominating position in agricultural production." p. 59 "By the middle of the century estates over a hundred thousand acres were not unknown. ... The story of the rise of the estates of the Byrds, Joneses, Fitzhughs, Masons, Washingtons, Carters, Lees, Epeses, Beverlys, Allens, etc., is one of continual additions by government grant, head rights, or purchases from individuals" p.60

Population growth for Virginia and Maryland combined: 1700- 100,000; 1750-250,000; 1776 - 800,000

Wave of outward migration 1740-1776 filling up the western parts of the two states. (pp. 61-64)

Shift to wheat and corn in the mid 1700's (1740-1770)

"The close of the colonial period found the process of agriculture by soil exploitation and abandoment well extended to its limits." p. 71

Chapter 3 - The Post-Revolutionary period, 1783-1820

Efforts at agricultural reform came from George Washington's letters to Arthur Young, John Taylor's writings (Arator), the formation of Agricultural Societies, and agricultural publications (e.g. the American Farmer). Major elements of reform were:

1. horizontal and deeper plowing
2. manures and inorganics (gypsum, marl)
3. grass crops and crop rotations

Other factors affecting agriculture in this era include:

• decline in tobacco market, increase in wheat market (some in response to Napolenic wars and resulting increased demands from Europe)
• westward migration
• lack of capital as manufacturing favored by federal government, tariffs

Reforms generally failed due to:

• incomplete scientific basis and overblown claims for some methods
• market condiitions, lack of capital, labor situation, shifting markets, tariffs
• large estates and slave labor

Despite failures at reform positive changes that occurred in this period were:

• "The hold of tobacco was now broken and complete dependence of European markets and marketing systems had largely ceased."
• large estates no longer needed or tenable, and was being divided
• better plows allowing deeper cultivation and horizontal plowing were adopted
• gypsum, marl and other fertilizers were being used
• manure now recognized as essential
• grasses, clover and other covers were more widely grown

Chapter 4 - The Agricultural Revival , 1820-1860


Actors:
Avery Odelle Craven (1886-1980) - historian

George Washington - general, president, famer

John Taylor (1753—1824) - Senator, farmer, author of Arator, owner of Hazelwood estate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_of_Caroline

Arthur Young (1741-1820) - English agronomist who corresponded with G. Washington

Edmund Ruffin (1794 - 1865) - agricultural reformer, proslavery ideologue, and Southern nationalist. owner of Marlbourne estate
http://www.dhr.virginia.gov/registers/Counties/Hanover/Marlbourne_photo.htm



William Byrd

Keywords:
tobacco - Nicotiana tabacum is a perennial herbaceuous plant. It is found only in cultivation, where it is the most commonly grown of all plants in the Nicotiana genus, and its leaves are commercially grown in many countries to be processed into tobacco.
hogshead - A tobacco hogshead was used in American colonial times to transport and store tobacco. It was a very large wooden barrel. A standardized hogshead measured 48 inches long and 30 inches in diameter at the head. Fully packed with tobacco, it weighed about 1000 pounds.

manure, gypsum, guano, marl, James River, Loudoun County;