American Agriculture Dbq Essay

“The vision of a huge fertile garden extending from the Appalachians to the Pacific Ocean had inspired Americans since the early days of the republic” (Out of Many - A History of the American People, pg. 622). Since its beginning, the American ways of farming had always been gradually evolving, but in the time between 1865 and 1900, it transformed like never before. The American tradition of agriculture would experience dramatic changes, as the growth of production and agribusiness would ensue from revolutions in technology, massive increase in population, and alterations in government policies. A major factor in changing the way of agriculture was the new technology being developed in farming and transportation. Ceaselessly expanding (see

Farmers may have seemed quite successful in their endeavors with technology, providing for the continuously expanding market, however, as their output of production multiplied, the value of their products dropped too swiftly for the farmers to make anything of them. This resulted in the railroads making the money, while most small farmers either lived in poverty, or close to it, due the pricey costs of railroads for transportation and interest for investments. “I tell you that the great cities rest upon these broad and fertile prairies” (Document J). The overall economy depended so greatly on the farmers and their labor, and yet they had received very little in return for it. “We went to work and plowed and planted; the rains fell, the sun shone, nature smiled, and we raised the big crop that they told us to; and what came of it? Eight-cent corn, ten-cent oats, two-cent beef, and no price at all for butter and eggs—that’s what came of it” (Document G). Farmers disapproved of the price they had to pay for overproduction; they wanted government subsidies, the nationalization of the railroads, abolition of the national banks, a universal currency, and the limit of reservation use (see Document I). Thus, the party of Populists arose, using these as their main demands and quickly became a major

Some were more favorable to the farmers, and others were detrimental. The Homestead Act helped to expand agriculture by granting free land to settlers that lived on and improved it. The Morrill Act rewarded farmers for sacrificing land to “land grant” colleges that promised the institutions of agricultural programs. The Government relinquished land for the native Indians to act as reservations, which reduced the potential farming land. Some farmers responded against the reservations by belittling the importance of the natives. “If the Indians must be fed and herded like a dumb brute, it should be done with smaller enclosures and not so senselessly at the expense of the American homesteader” (Document I). They did the same in the South, with sharecropping (see Document E) and black codes for many of the penniless African Americans that had nowhere else to go. Acts such as the Timber Culture Act and the National Reclamation Act, also prevented the expansion of large farms. Government policy aided expansion of agriculture by giving land grants to railroads. These land grants gave free land to railroads, increasing the number of railroads (Document B) that the farmers used to transport their crops and cattle. Cattle from western ranches were moved to the slaughter houses of Chicago to be sold as beef (see Document F). Ultimately, the farmers did not feel that they were well represented in the