“The most essential challenge for humanity is to learn to eat from nature’s bounty without destroying it in the process, to find our appropriate niche within nature.”
~ Judith Soule and Jon Piper

Crop rotation can be traced all the way back to the ancient Roman, African, and Asian cultures. It has evolved alongside the progress of agriculture since the first domestication of plants. The benefits of such rotation were realized early and utilized to their full potential. Even in Europe during the Middle Ages farmers followed a three-year rotation pattern, planting rye or winter wheat during the first year, followed by spring oats or barley in the second year, and then no crops were grown in the third year. Later in the eighteenth century, British agriculturist Charles Townshend developed a four-year crop rotation of wheat, barley, turnips, and clover that aided the European agricultural revolution (Bellis 2005). This rotation has implications in the United States as well seeing as Europeans brought many of their domesticated plants and animals with them when they came to the New World.

Settlement of America combined native plant and animal species with ones brought over from Europe and other world regions creating a new set of agricultural conditions. In the beginning the conditions of colonizing made subsistence farming the main form of agriculture. It was not until the frontier opened up and the idea of Manifest Destiny hit that American agriculture began down its own pathway of revolution.

For my analysis I have broken down the history of American agriculture into three sections. I determined the breaks based on two significant turning points in the practice of agriculture, which had repercussions throughout the entire nation and world. The first break occurs in 1850 when the commercial corn and wheat belts began to form illustrating the initiation of what has become our current form of industrial agriculture. The second break at 1940 displays how technology and machinery shifted our system toward more industrial farm operations. Through analysis of our historical patterns the road to our current farming practices becomes clearly established.

1800-1850
Wheat Farm Aitkin County, MN Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society	1830s-1840s – Mechanical corn shellers are introduced
	1831 – Cyrus H. McCormick developed the first commercially successful reaper, a horse-drawn machine that harvested wheat
	1837 – John Deere invented the first cast steel plow
	1842 – Joseph Dart invented the grain elevator
	1849 – Minnesota was established as a territory
	1850 – Edmund Quincy invented the corn picker, commercial corn and wheat belts began to develop, wheat occupied the newer and cheaper land west of the corn areas and was constantly being forced westward by rising land values and the encroachment of the corn areas, alfalfa was being grown on the west coast, successful farming on the prairies began

"Before the industrial revolution, corn shocks were hauled in good weather to the barn, and then in harsh winter, the young people went from farm to farm in the evenings making a party out of the husking. The person who husked a red ear - and there were many red ears in the days before standardized hybrid corn - got to kiss his or her sweetheart. This was the cultural, even cultured, way of making work pleasant. It was replaced by a farmer husking corn alone in a cold December field, day after day - a misery, one he was driven to when technology made communal work impossible and obsolete, and when traditional social rituals had lost their significance (2000).”

Such enriching community experiences were replaced with more hectic and expensive lifestyles for the farmers and their families. In turn, these farmers were later replaced with more industrial agribusinesses that could shoulder the burden of mass food production. Our society has lost the local knowledge and community spirit that went hand in hand with traditional farming practices before the rise of commercial monocropping. The loss of human community parallels the weakening in the relationship between farmer and land as well.

Wendell Berry states that the commercial version of agriculture explains to both farmer and consumer that "private knowledge, judgment, and effort can be satisfactorily replaced by generalized, expensive technological solutions (Jackson, Berry, and Colman 1984)." This idea really begins to show in the 1850s as crop rotation methods, whose benefits have been known since ancient times, are being replaced with commercial monocropping. The fact that the wheat belt slowly is pushed aside and taken over by the corn belt proves that general mass production is the encroaching goal encouraged by society, especially since corn is harder on the soil than wheat. In addition, these new heavy steel plows cause soil compaction problems. This new machinery is heavier than the old wood and animal contraptions of traditional farming and reduces water penetration and air supply to root systems, which in turn decreases crop yields. After such intense soil compaction the time it takes to irrigate that soil doubles and triples in length speeding the soil towards an unfertile future (Jackson, Berry, and Colman 1984).

In Minnesota small farmers trying to make a living in the harsh Midwest environment were still practicing crop rotation late into the 1800s. Through the journals of Oliver Kelley we know that he raised corn, oats, wheat, hay, sorghum, and vegetables on his farm in addition to raising different kinds of livestock. Around 1874 Mary Carpent describes the layout of her farm in a letter: "The land here is rich and productive. We have in four acres broomcorn, four of corn, one of potatoes, and beans; besides quite a good garden." Most of this farming was only being done by subsistence farmers, as the commercial monocropping wave was approaching.

1850-1940
Steam Engine Powered Tractor Photo Courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society	1853 – George W. Brown invented the first corn planter, previously to 1850 corn had to be planted by hand
	1855 – John Deere’s factory was selling over 10,000 steel plows a year
	1858 – C. W. Marsh and W. W. Marsh invented the “Marsh harvester”
	1862 – Homestead Act grants 160 acres of federal land to those who meet specific criteria
	1868 – First steam engine powered farm tractors are used for general haulage and specifically by the timber trade
	1880s – Heavy agricultural settlement on the Great Plains, the combine began to appear in experimental versions
	1887-1897 – Drought reduced settlement on the Great Plains
	1900-1910 – George Washington Carver developed his crop rotation method that revolutionized southern agriculture
	1926 – First hybrid-seed corn company was organized
	1930-1935 – Use of hybrid-seed corn became common in the Corn Belt
	1932-1936 – Drought and dust bowl conditions developed

Through the Homestead Act of 1862 there was a migration toward the Great Plains as people wanted land to farm and call their own. Those farmers who could prove that they had been residing upon or farming their land for five consecutive years were granted the claim to their land. Farmers could not get more than 160 acres or work more than one claim in a lifetime (Schlebecker 1975). Farming the prairies of the Midwest began to boom leading to the heavy agricultural settlement by the 1880s. Modern monocultures also dominated the Great Plains landscape now, decreasing soil fertility and depleting the soil of much needed nitrogen.

In the south, monocropping of cotton, a soil-depleting crop, had lead to soil degradation. George Washington Carver, while a teacher at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute for Negroes, developed a crop rotation that would help revive the southern soil. Carver advocated that farmers alternate soil-depleting crops, such as cotton, with soil-enriching crops, such as peanuts, peas, soybeans, sweet potatoes, and pecans (Bellis 2005). Through this cycle the south underwent their own agricultural revolution that renewed their soil and in doing so their connection with the natural processes of the land.

Unfortunately the Great Plains was suffering from drought conditions and the harsh use of their soil was emphasized. The dust bowl and depression were well on their way. "By 1933, at least 50 million acres had been laid waste. Land reduced in usefulness by half through erosion came to another 125 million acres. The destruction had, in fact, just begun (Schlebecker 1975)." In 1935 Congress created the Soil Conservation Service in order to save the fertility of the soil. Several projects were developed to help stop erosion and renew the soil fertility. Crop rotation occurred sporadically as did cover crops and contour fields. With the onset of the dust bowl drastic measures were needed. The main projects included planting drought-resistant trees that did help with soil erosion problems, but were eventually cut down and used by farmers for fuel. The primary lesson that came about through the dust bowl was the need for fertilizers and manures, a mistake American farmers would never make again (Schlebecker 1975). This changed the face of American agriculture once again as fertilizer use becomes a solution and a problem all of its own.

1940-1990
Minneapolis Moline Tractors Coming off the Assembly Line Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society	1940 – Big changes due to the increased use of tractors, crops used for livestock feed, such as oats, dropped
	1943 – DDT becomes available in the United States
	1944 – Discovery of effective herbicides
	1945-1955 – Increased use of herbicides and pesticides
	1946 – Self-propelled corn picker is placed on the market
	1950s – Many rural areas suffer population losses as many farm family members sought outside work
	1956 – Legislation passed providing for Great Plains Conservation Program
	1960s – Soybean acreage expanded as farmers used soybeans as an alternative to other crops
	1980-1990 – Biotechnology research gets underway
	1985 – Farm Bill created the Conservation Reserve Program
	1988 – One of the worst droughts in the Nation’s history hit midwestern farmers
	1990 – Farm Bill provided the first national standards for “organically grown” labeling

As tractors became available and affordable to all farmers the efficiency with which large acres of land could be cultivated increased and therefore industrial methods of agriculture increased right alongside leading us into the era of agribusiness. Interestingly enough, World War II aided this movement by creating the conditions needed to discover herbicides and pesticides. Scientists were working to discover chemicals or other agents that could be manipulated to kill only one specific type of vegetation. Through their research they came across DDT and some of the more effective herbicides. Biological warfare helped lead the way to our modern system of agriculture.

In conjunction with the rising of industrial farming smaller family farms were decreasing. "In 1900, there were 5.7 million farms in the United States, averaging 138 acres apiece. By 1978, the number had dropped to 2.5 million, and their average size was 415 acres. (Jackson, Berry, and Colman 1984)." Industrial agribusiness has taken the 'culture' out of agriculture, as Wendell Berry would say. Food production has become a business only corporations seem to be allowed to participate in. Crops are seen as commodities and traditional farmers as we know them are all but disappeared. The local knowledge and connection to the land and its processes are on the verge of being lost as well.

As we hit the 1960s hopeful movements can be seen that are trying to renew the relationship between land and farmer, or corporation, as may be the case. The idea of crop rotation is resurfacing as the ancient benefits are once again realized. Soybeans are introduced only the first step towards a more diverse and sustainable agricultural system. The farm bill of 1985 was unproductive in that it "required farmers with highly erodible land to design approved conservation plans by 1990 to remain eligible for any government farm support or loan program, [however], other provisions still made farmers lose benefits if they used crop rotation (Soule and Piper 1992)." The 1990 farm bill changed this ruling so that farmers could use crop rotation and were even encouraged to do so.

We are currently in a period where research is being done to discover more sustainable agricultural practices as we realize that our modern industrial system is unhealthy for humans and the environment alike. Crop rotation has been a valuable method of sustainable agriculture known by ancient civilizations and historical settlers alike, forgotten through the industrial and technological revolution that has taken hold of our country. It is time to rediscover this important tradition and all its benefits in order to restore balance to our relationship with nature and save the health of our society.

Information for timeline was provided by: (Soule and Piper 1992), (Schlebecker 1975), and (Bellis 2005)