Creating abundance
Subtitle: biological innovation and American agricultural development, 1700-1960
By: Alan Olmstead, Paul W. Rhode.
Contributors: Rhode, Paul Webb.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 467
ISBN-13: 9780521857116; 9780521673877
Subjects: Agricultural innovations -- United States -- History; Agricultural biotechnology -- United States -- History; Agricultural productivity -- United States -- History
Other titles: Biological innovation and American agricultural development, 1700-1960
Description: "This book demonstrates that American agricultural development was far more dynamic than generally portrayed. In the two centuries before World War II, a stream of biological innovations revolutionized the crop and livestock sectors, increasing both land and labor productivity. Biological innovations were essential for the movement of agriculture onto new lands with more extreme climates, for maintaining production in the face of evolving threats from pests, and for the creation of the modern livestock sector. These innovations established the foundation for the subsequent Green and Genetic revolutions. This book challenges the misconceptions that, before the advent of hybrid com, American farmers single-mindedly invested in laborsaving mechanical technologies and that biological technologies were static."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The red queen and the hard reds: productivity growth in American wheat, 1800-1940; title: Corn: America's crop; title: Cotton: variety innovation and the making of king cotton; title: Weevils, worms, and wilts: the red queen's cotton playground; title: The other revolution in the cotton economy: cotton's revival in the twentieth century; title: That "stincking weede of America": the evolution of tobacco production; title: California: creating a cornucopia; title: Livestock in the farm economy; title: Defining and redesigning America's livestock; title: Nature's perfect food: inventing the modern dairy industry; title: Draft power.