Copy of Agriculture

• Eastern North America
• top 4 major places of agriculture and plant domestication
• clearest records of agriculture origins

• 2,000 B.C. -Native Americans harvest at least 4 indigenous crops
• Maize not a major crop until after 800 A.D.

• oxen and horses as power sources
• horse power
• sowing done by hand
• hoes, sickles, and flails used in harvesting
• 1790s-technological advancements
• cradle & scythe
• 1793-cotton gin invented by Eli Whitney
• 1797- patent of the 1st cast-iron plow by Charles Newbold

Tobacco becomes the major crop of the South.

The first Merino sheep was imported during 1793 and by 1795 until 1815 the sheep became a huge industry in New England.

The Agricultural Revolution

19th Century Agriculture:

• Horse drawn agricultural machines developed
• 1830s mechanical reapers invented (McCormick & Hussey)
• vibrating blades
• cut about 15 acres of wheat a day.
• 1868- first steam tractors built.
• By 1900, 5,000 steam tractors built every year.
• 1873-John Deere creates wrought iron plow with steel cutting edge

20th Century Agriculture:

• beginning of 20th century-very labor intensive
• required many laborers to maintain and feed America
• by the late 1900s far less people needed to work on farms
• number of farms decreased
• acreage of each farm greatly increased
• large amounts of land easier to maintain
• tractors made farming large plots easier
• replaced animal power by 1970
• by the late 1960s mechanical harvesting of crops became standard
• advancements in plant and animal breeding
• increased yields and quality
• fertilizers essential to growing enough crops to feed America
• Customer demands changed
• decisions based on convenience and ease
• Amount of farm exports increased
• Farm policy changed
• more than 10 different acts passed on agriculture and its products
• moved to a market-oriented direction

Agriculture today

• less than 2% of Americans (4.6 million) live on farms
• 90% of U.S. farms are family run
• provides jobs for 15% of the population
• consumers spend $547 billion for U.S. food
• on average $6 million of agricultural products exported daily
• technology allows increased production with less land
• increasing land use for wildlife
• 83% of American farms use computers

However, agriculture has caused a lot of controversy.

No GMO!!

GMO!!

Is organic best?

and that's not even the beginning...

• agriculture created a more stationary lifestyle
• don't have to follow animals for food
• create villages near rivers
• grow more of their own food
• increased farming capabilities
• able to plant more and different crops
• increased variation in diets
• produce more food with less resources
• inventions in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries

Arguments against agriculture:

• increased disease
• decline in human health

Now the big question is: What's next?

Sustainable Farming

Corporate Agriculture

Or Both?

Created By:

Haley McCune

17th Century Agriculture

1607- First permanent English settlers in Jamestown Va.

1619- First African American slaves brought to Va.

18th Century Agriculture

• 1776-Declaration of Independence created
• farm exports
• land regulations
• western settlement.
• 1786-Shay's Rebellion, a revolt of farmers against deflation.
• 1790-Farmers account for 90% of the labor force.
• 1796- Public Land Act-federal land sales to public
• Western Expansion

Back

to the

Beginning

The Future

What's in store for agriculture?

• 3 major turning points/eras for North American agriculture:

3,000 B.C. to 2,000 B.C.

Native Americans discover that wild seed plants can be harvested and used for food.

By the year 2,000 B.C. there is evidence of crop domestication in Tennessee, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, and Alabama.

Moving

Forward

250 B.C. to 200 A.D.

• Food production emerged.
• More Seed crops appear in the diet.
• Maize began to appear in small amounts.
• Settlements begin to emerge near river valleys in Ohio
• Evidence shows that these settlements made hoes and other tools to aid in farming.

A.D. 800 to A.D. 1100

• Beginning of large field farming
• Maize becomes most important crop-dominates fields and diets
• Mississippian chiefdoms-villages in the South and Midwest

Agriculture

"Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own."

-Samuel Johnson

Sources:

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/CollegeRelations/AGRICU.htm

http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/259572/eib3_1_.pdf

http://www.clemson.edu/caah/history/FacultyPages/PamMack/lec323/agric19.htm

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/agriculture.html

• 18-19th centuries
• rapid increase in agricultural activity and productivity
• improvements in farm technology
• transition from hand labor to machine labor and commercial agriculture
• 1860-1910 number of farms increased from 2 million to 6 million
• Population doubled
• many new inventions created improving the life of American farmers

• Cyrus McCormick's Mechanical Reaper
• cut up to two and a half hectares a day
• automatic wire binder
• threshing machine
• mechanical planters, cutters, huskers, and shellers
• cream separators
• manure spreaders
• potato planters
• hay driers
• poultry incubators

http://lewishistoricalsociety.com/wiki2011/article_image.php?image_type=article&id=65

http://web.mesacc.edu/dept/d10/asb/lifeways/hg_ag/quiet_revolution.html

http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/17_18.htm

http://countrystudies.us/united-states/history-74.htm

In North America