This paper begins by addressing the central questions underlying the country-specific essays in this volume: what was the relationship between agricultural development and the development of other sectors? Did agricultural growth support or compete with industrial development? And, was an...

Contemporary accounts of the history of globalization place the grain trade in a leading role. Narrowing price gaps for wheat in world markets serve as the key indicator of increasing market integration. And the chief example of an early policy backlash is the rising protectionism of European...

In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, California agriculture underwent a fundamental transformation as the state's farmers shifted from the production of wheat to a rich variety of tree, vine, and row crops. This transformation required a wholesale shift in the production...

By 1900 scientific breakthroughs revealed that bovine tuberculosis was a serious and growing threat to animal and human health. Early private and state initiatives in the U.S. to address the problem were often counterproductive because they increased the incentives for the interstate trade of...

This paper examines the impact and diffusion of the gasoline tractor in American agriculture. A key feature of the transition from horses to tractors was a long intermediate stage when both modes of power were used on the same farm. This is largely explained in the technical limitations of early...

Between 1928 and 1960 U.S. cotton production witnessed a revolution with average yields increasing roughly threefold. In addition, the average staple length of the U.S. crop increased significantly, reversing a long-run downward trend in cotton quality. Underlying these accomplishments were...