The entire issue can be accessed on JSTOR. Open access articles are linked below.
Articles
Theory and Method: An Analysis of European and American Animal Breeding Practices, from the Eighteenth to the Twenty-First Century
by Margaret E. Derry
In the twentieth century a conflict arose between geneticists and practical breeders over which theory of heredity should direct animal breeding strategies and methods. Two different approaches existed and competed with each other over how to develop a breeding methodology for the livestock industries. This article addresses strategies on the basis of theoretical outlooks by explaining the way they arose over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, what brought them into conflict with each other after the rise of Mendelian genetics in 1900, and ultimately how and why the differing systems emanating from them affected animal industries over the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. Looking at methodology through the lens of its theoretical roots provides an enriched appreciation of the interrelationship between science and practice, and also shows that the intellectual disagreements between geneticists and practical breeders rested on foundations that far predated the science of genetics.
Sowing Diversity: The Horticultural Roots of Truck Farming in Coastal South Carolina
by Kelly Kean Sharp
Agricultural and environmental historians of the US South have in the last three decades focused on planters’ engagement with scientific pursuits as a means toward financial and environmental improvement. But in focusing on these failed attempts of conservation husbandry, the discipline has paid little heed to southern antebellum agricultural efforts beyond the commodity crops of rice and cotton. Following in the stead of the New Agricultural History’s awareness of environmental processes in shaping life and labor, “Sowing Diversity” identifies the root of truck farming in the American South through exploring the connection between antebellum agronomic organizations and changing visions of agronomic advancement, technologies of information, and economic relationships over the course of the nineteenth century. Focusing on agronomic experimentation in the urban sphere, specifically the lasting impact of Charleston’s rich antebellum horticultural community, this article exposes the deep roots of southern agronomic efforts beyond rice and cotton, bringing to light southern planters’ keen interest for agricultural advancement beyond the scope of financial profit.
Tools for Overcoming Crisis: Agriculture, Scarcity, and Ideas of Rural Mechanization in Late Qing China
by Peter B. Lavelle
In the second half of the nineteenth century, China experienced agricultural and ecological crises of increasing frequency and severity. This article shows how these crises fostered discussion among Chinese elites about the value of steam-powered machines for agricultural development. In the 1860s the expansion of wasteland and the rising price of grain in provinces destroyed by the Taiping Rebellion convinced some to voice support for introducing labor-saving machinery into rural areas. In the 1870s the drought that catalyzed the North China Famine persuaded others of the value of well-drilling machines to solve the problem of water scarcity. The growth of Chinese-language periodicals and interactions between Chinese and foreigners in China and other countries facilitated the acquisition of knowledge about foreign farming technologies and stimulated debate over their value to Chinese agriculture. Although proposals for rural mechanization were never widely implemented in this era, they are significant insofar as they demonstrate the ways these crises engendered new considerations of how to exploit the country’s land and water resources. This finding suggests that historians need to take account of such crises to understand the roots of industrialization in China.
Modernization in the Periphery: The Introduction of the Tractor in Chile, 1910–1935
by Claudio Robles-Ortiz
This is the first study of the introduction of the tractor in a Latin American country before 1930. Challenging conventional views on agricultural mechanization in Chile, the article shows that a progressive sector of upper-class landowners and state experts introduced tractors, primarily as a solution to poor plowing and low land productivity. The first tractors were tested in 1907, starting a process of technological innovation that resulted in the adoption of tractors after World War I. Introducing the tractor into the large estates of a peripheral rural society was a learning process for Chilean agriculturalists. The first “mammoth” steam tractors proved unsuitable for Chile’s farming practices, but, as US manufacturers produced more efficient models and local distributors successfully marketed them, landowners learned about their advantages. In the 1920s they adopted light, wheeled models that spread throughout Chile in the 1930s. The tractor was the culmination of a long process of mechanization of the Chilean hacienda system that developed from the 1850s. It was also a technological innovation that contributed to the drastic increase of cultivated land in Chile, and one of the sources of economic growth in Chilean agriculture in the early twentieth century.
Roundtable: Animal History in a Time of Crisis
by Reinaldo Funes-Monzote, Susan Nance, Gabriel N. Rosenberg, Joshua Specht, Sandra Swart
Book Reviews
Other Reviews
Kirchberger and Bennett, eds., Environments of Empire: Networks and Agents of Ecological Change, by Camden Burd
Earle, Feeding the People: The Politics of the Potato, by Peter Scholliers
Broome, Fahey, Gaynor, and Holmes, Mallee Country: Land, People, History, by Daniel May
Duffy, Nomad’s Land: Pastoralism and French Environmental Policy in the Nineteenth-Century Mediterranean World, by Jackson R. Perry
Fuller, Famine Relief in Warlord China, by Matthew Noellert
Sheflin, Legacies of Dust: Land Use and Labor on the Colorado Plains, by David B. Danbom
Kahrl, Free the Beaches: The Story of Ned Coll and the Battle for America’s Most Exclusive Suburbs, by Alyssa Ribeiro
Biolsi, Power and Progress on the Prairie: Governing People on Rosebud Reservation, by Keith Richotte Jr.
Reid and Vail, Interpreting the Environment at Museums and Historic Sites, by Daniella McCahey
Previous Issues
94.2 (Spring 2020)
94.1 (Winter 2020)
93.4 (Fall 2019)
93.3 (Summer 2019)
93.2 (Spring 2019)
93.1 (Winter 2019)