Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T17:50:45.522Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Learning, Capital Accumulation, and the Transformation of California Agriculture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Paul W. Rhode
Paul W. Rhode
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Between 1890 and 1914, California agriculture rapidly shifted from extensive to intensive crops, emerging as one of the world's major suppliers of Mediterranean products. Based on an analysis of new data on price and quantity movements, this article calls into question the traditional emphasis on changes in transportation, water, and labor market conditions as explanations for California's transformation. It argues that increases in fruit supply outpaced increases in demand and that declining farm interest rates and biological learning played crucial, if relatively neglected, roles in the intensification process.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , December 1995 , pp. 773 - 800
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adams, R. L. Farm Management Notes (For California). Berkeley: Associated Students' Store, 1921.Google Scholar
Andrews, Frank. Marketing Grain and Livestock in the Pacific Region. U.S. Bureau of Statistics Bulletin No. 89. Washington, DC: GPO, 1911.Google Scholar
Bean, Walton. California: An Interpretive Histoiy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978.Google Scholar
Berry, Thomas. Early California: Gold, Prices, Trade. Richmond: Bostwick, 1984.Google Scholar
Blanchard, Henry. Improvement of the Wheat Crop in California. U.S. Department of Agriculture Bulletin No. 178. Washington, DC: GPO, 1910.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burns, J. “A Pioneer Fruit Region.” Overland Monthly. 2nd Series, 12, no. 67 (1888): 1–12. California. Board of Railroad Commissioners. Biennial Report 1893–94. Sacramento, 1894. California. Crop and Livestock Reporting Service. California Fruit and Nut Crops, 1909–1955. Special Publication No. 261. Sacramento, 1956.Google Scholar
California. Railroad Commission. Decision 3847. San Francisco, 4 11 1916.Google Scholar
California. Senate Committee on Corporations. Railroad Fares and Freights. Sacramento, 1876.Google Scholar
California. State Agricultural Society. 1859 Transactions. Sacramento, 1860.Google Scholar
California. State Agricultural Society. 1866–67 Transactions. Sacramento, 1867.Google Scholar
California. State Agricultural Society. 1880 Transactions. Sacramento, 1882.Google Scholar
California. State Agricultural Society. 1881 Transactions. Sacramento, 1882.Google Scholar
California. State Agricultural Society. 1882 Transactions. Sacramento, 1883.Google Scholar
California. State Agricultural Society. 1886 Transactions. Sacramento, 1887.Google Scholar
California. State Agricultural Society. 1890 Transactions. Sacramento, 1891.Google Scholar
California. State Board of Agriculture. 1912 Annual Report. Sacramento, 1913.Google Scholar
California. State Board of Horticulture. 1889 Annual Report. Sacramento, 1890.Google Scholar
California. State Board of Horticulture. Fourth Biennial Report, 1893–94. Sacramento, 1894.Google Scholar
California Development Board. 1915 Annual Report. San Francisco: California Development Board, 1915.Google Scholar
Clark, Gregory. “The Cost of Capital and Medieval Agricultural Technique.” Explorations in Economic Histoty 25, no. 3 (1988): 265–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Gregory. “The Economics of Exhaustion, the Postan Thesis, and the Agricultural Revolution.” this JOURNAL 52, no. 1 (1992): 61–84.Google Scholar
Cleland, Robert, and Hardy, Osgood. March of Industry. Los Angeles: Powell, 1929.Google Scholar
Daggett, Stuart. History of Southern Pacific. New York: Sentry, 1922.Google Scholar
Davis, Lance. “The Investment Market, 1870–1914: The Evolution of a National Market.” this JOURNAL 25, no. 3 (1965): 355–99.Google Scholar
Eisen, Gustav. Raisin Industry. San Francisco: H. S. Crocker, 1890.Google Scholar
Fuller, Varden. “The Supply of Agricultural Labor as a Factor in the Evolution of Farm Organization in California.” U.S. Senate. Committee on Education and Labor. Hearings Pursuant to Senate Resolution 266: Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor. Exhibit 8762A. 76th Cong., 3rd sess., 1940.Google Scholar
Hallagan, William. “Labor Contracting in Turn-of-the-Century California Agriculture.” this JOURNAL 40, no. 4 (1980): 757–76.Google Scholar
Harding, S. T. Water in California. Palo Alto, CA: N-P Publishers, 1960.Google Scholar
Hayami, Yujiro, and Ruttan, Vernon. Agricultural Development: An International Perspective. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1985.Google Scholar
Hill, Forest. “An Analysis of Regional Economic Development: The Case of California.” Land Economics 31, no. 1 (1955): 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodgson, Robert. “California Fruit Industry.” Economic Geography 9, no. 4 (1933): 337–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horton, Donald, et al. Farm-Mortgage Credit Facilities in the United States. U.S. Department of Agriculture Misc. Publication No. 478. Washington, DC: GPO, 1942.Google Scholar
Liebman, Ellen. California Farmland: A History of Large Agricultural Landholdings. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld, 1983.Google Scholar
Lister, Roger. Bank Behavior, Regulation, and Economic Development, California, 1860–1910. New York: Garland, 1993.Google Scholar
McWilliams, Carey. Factories in the Fields. Boston: Little-Brownl, 1939.Google Scholar
Mercer, Lloyd. Railroads and Land Grant Policy: A Study in Government Intervention. New York: Academic Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Odell, Kerry. Capital Mobilization and Regional Financial Markets: the Pacific Coast, 1850–1920. New York: Garland, 1992.Google Scholar
Pacific Rural Press. various dates.Google Scholar
Parker, William. “Agriculture.” In American Economic Growth: An Economist's Histoty of the United States, edited by Davis, Lance et al., 369–417. New York: Harper and Row, 1972.Google Scholar
Paul, Rodman. The Far West and the Great Plains in Transition, 1859–1900. New York: Harper and Row, 1988.Google Scholar
Pisani, Donald. From Family Farm to Agribusiness: The Irrigation Crusade in California and the West, 1850–1931. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pisani, Donald. “Land Monopoly in Nineteenth-Century California.” Agricultural History 65, no. 1 (1991): 15–37.Google Scholar
Pomeroy, Earl. Pacific Slope. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965.Google Scholar
Powell, Fred. “Co-operative Marketing of California Fresh Fruit.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 24, no. 2 (1910): 392–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
San Francisco Chronicle, various dates.Google Scholar
Shaw, John. “Commercialization in an Agricultural Economy: Fresno County, California, 1856–1900.” Ph.D diss., Purdue University, 1969.Google Scholar
Shaw, John. “Railroads, Irrigation, and Economic Growth: The San Joaquin Valley of California.” Explorations in Economic History 10, no. 2 (1973): 211–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Paul, and Vasey, Thomas. “Historical Background of California Farm Labor.” Rural Sociology 1, no. 3 (1936): 281–95.Google Scholar
Taylor, William. “The Influence of Refrigeration on the Fruit Industry.” In 1900 USDA Yeathook, 574–79. Washington, DC: GPO, 1900.Google Scholar
Teague, Charles, Fifty Years A Rancher: The Recollections of Half a Century Devoted to the Citrus and Walnut Industries of California and to Furthering the Cooperative Movement in Agriculture. Los Angeles: Ward Ritchie, 1944.Google Scholar
Tufts, Warren. Rich Pattern of California Crops. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1946.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of Agricultural Economics. Fruit Production (Non-Citrus) Production, Farm Disposition, Value and Utilization, 1889–1944. Washington, DC: GPO, 1944.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Wholesale Prices, 1890–1914. Bulletin No. 181. Washington, DC: GPO, 1915.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910. Vol. 5. Agriculture, General Report. Washington, DC: GPO, 1913.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910. Vol. 6. Agriculture, Report by States, Alabama to Montana. Washington, DC: GPO, 1913.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. Vol. 5. Agriculture, General Report. Washington, DC: GPO, 1922.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. Vol. 8. Irrigation and Drainage. Washington, DC: GPO, 1922.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930, Irrigation of Agricultural Lands. Washington, DC: GPO, 1932.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930, Agriculture. Vol. 2. pt. 3. Western States. Washington, DC: GPO, 1932.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930, Agriculture. Vol. 4, pt. 3. General Report. Washington, DC: GPO, 1932.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930, Population. Vol. 4. Occupations by States. Washington, DC: GPO, 1933.Google Scholar
U.S. Census Office. Eighth Census, 1860. Vol. 2. Agriculture. Washington, DC: GPO, 1864.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Tenth Census, 1880. Vol. 3. Agriculture. Washington, DC: GPO, 1883.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Tenth Census, 1880. Vol. 6. Cotton Production. pt. 2. Eastern, Gulf Atlantic, and Pacific States. Washington, DC: GPO, 1884.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Eleventh Census, 1890, Agriculture by Irrigation in the Western Part of the United States. Washington, DC: GPO, 1894.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Eleventh Census, 1890. Vol. 10. Agriculture. Washington, DC: GPO, 1895.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Eleventh Census, 1890. Vol. 20. Report on Real Estate Mortgages in the United States. Washington, DC: GPO, 1895.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census, 1900. Vol. 5. Agriculture. pt. 1. Farms, Live Stock, and Animal Products. Washington, DC: GPO, 1902.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census, 1900. Vol. 6. Agriculture. pt. 2. Crops and Irrigation. Washington, DC: GPO, 1902.Google Scholar
U.S. Commissioner of Agriculture. 1862 Report. Washington, DC: GPO, 1863.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Agriculture. Prices of Farm Products Received by Producers: Mountain and Pacific States. Statistical Bulletin No. 17. Washington, DC: GPO, 1927.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Agriculture. Wheat: Acreage, Yield, and Production by States, 1 866–1943. Statistical Bulletin No. 158. Washington, DC: GPO, 1955.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Agriculture. Barley: Acreage, Yield, Production, Price and Value by States, 1866–1953. Statistical Bulletin No. 241. Washington, DC: GPO, 1959.Google Scholar
U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission[ICC]. “Consolidated Forwarding Company v. Southern Pacific Company et al.” Interstate Commerce Reports. Vol. 9. Decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission of the United States, April 1901 to Dec. 1903. Rochester, NY: Lawyers' Co-operative Publishing Co., 1904.Google Scholar
U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission[ICC]. “Consolidated Forwarding Company v. Southern Pacific Company et al.” Interstate Commerce Reports. Vol. 10. Decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission of the United States, Jan. 1904–April 1905. Rochester, NY: Lawyers' Co-operative Publishing Co., 1905.Google Scholar
U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission[ICC]. “California Growers' and Shippers' Protective League v. Southern Pacific Company et al” Interstate Commerce Commission Reports. Vol. 100. Decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission of the United States, May–June 1925. Washington, DC: GPO, 1925.Google Scholar
U.S. Senate. Report on Wholesale Prices, on Wages, and on Transportation. pts. 1 and 2. 52d Cong., 2d sess., 1893.Google Scholar
U.S. Senate. Regulation of Railway Rates. Digest of Hearings. Vol. 1. 59th Cong., 1st sess., 1906.Google Scholar
U.S. Treasury. Internal Commerce of the United States: California. Washington, DC: GPO, 1891.Google Scholar
U.S. Weather Bureau. Climatology of California. Bulletin L. Washington, DC: GPO, 1903.Google Scholar
Warren, G. F., and Pearson, F. A.. Prices. New York: Wiley, 1933.Google Scholar
Wickson, Edward. California Fruit. San Francisco: Pacific Rural Press, 1900.Google Scholar
Wood, R. C. and Bush, L.. California Story. San Francisco: Fearon 1957.Google Scholar
Zevin, Robert. “Growth of Cotton Textile Production After 1815.” In Reinterpretation of American Economic Growth, edited by Fogel, Robert and Engerman, Stanley, 122–47. New York: Harper and Row, 1971.Google Scholar