num_pages: 287
description: A Major History of Early Americans' Ideas about ConservationFifty years after the Revolution, American farmers faced a crisis: the failing soils of the Atlantic states threatened the agricultural prosperity upon which the republic was founded. Larding the Lean Earth explores the tempestuous debates that erupted between "improvers," intent on sustaining the soil of existing farms, and "emigrants," who thought it wiser and more "American" to move westward as the soil gave out. Larding the Lean Earth is a signal work of environmental history and an original contribution to the study of antebellum America.
language: English
title: Larding the Lean Earth: Soil and Society in Nineteenth-Century America
titlecomplete: Larding the Lean Earth: Soil and Society in Nineteenth-Century America
genres: History, Agriculture, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 49
awards: awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Mark Lynton History Prize
publisher: Hill and Wang