A - A look backward

Summary

All, all of a piece throughout:

Thy chase had a beast in view;

Thy wars brought nothing about

Thy lovers were all untrue.

Tis well an old age is out,

And time to begin a new.

–J. Dryden, Chorus from the Secular Masque

INTRODUCTION

Between 1958 and 1962, an effort was begun at the University of North Carolina to employ quantification in the historical study of the principal branches of the American agricultural industry: (1) the plantation and small cotton farms of the South; (2) the mixed grain and livestock farms in the Northeast and North Central (Middle West) states; (3) the specialized wheat farms and cattle ranches of the Great Plains; (4) the specialized dairy and hay farming in the market areas of the coastal cities of the Northeast and around the Great Lakes. The decades 1840–1860 and 1900–10 were chosen as end points to catch these regional groups of specialized producers at significant points in their modern history. The cotton regions were to be shown first, at the height of the slave labor system and then after the full evolution of the postbellum organization of free farms as share tenancies and share and wage labor plantations. For the grain and meat producers the dates captured the organization before and after the great expansion from the eastern edge of the Plains to the Rockies, and the evolution of the complex market system of open range with seasonal drives and shipment through the feeding and fattening areas to central slaughtering points, to be combined with animals from the older mixed-grain and livestock farms.