American Georgics: Writings on Farming, Culture, and the Land

by Brian Donahue, Edwin C. Hagenstein, Sara M. Gregg

Overview

A rich and evocative collection of agrarian writing from the past two centuries, reflecting how shifting views on agriculture have shaped American society, from the first European settlers to the modern organic movement. 

From Thomas Jefferson's Monticello to Michelle Obama's White House organic garden, the image of America as a nation of farmers has persisted from the beginnings of the American experiment. In this rich and evocative collection of agrarian writing from the past two centuries, writers from Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur to Wendell Berry reveal not only the great reach and durability of the American agrarian ideal, but also the ways in which society has contested and confronted its relationship to agriculture over the course of generations.

Drawing inspiration from Virgil's agrarian epic poem, Georgics, this collection presents a complex historical portrait of the American character through its relationship to the land. From the first European settlers eager to cultivate new soil, to the Transcendentalist, utopian, and religious thinkers of the nineteenth century, American society has drawn upon the vision of a pure rural life for inspiration. Back-to-the-land movements have surged and retreated in the past centuries yet provided the agrarian roots for the environmental movement of the past forty years. Interpretative essays and a sprinkling of illustrations accompany excerpts from each of these periods of American agrarian thought, providing a framework for understanding the sweeping changes that have confronted the nation's landscape.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300188042
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	09/25/2012
Series:	Yale Agrarian Studies Series
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Edwin C. Hagenstein is a freelance editor and writer in Boston. Sara M. Gregg teaches U.S. and environmental history at the University of Kansas. Brian Donahue is associate professor of American environmental studies at Brandeis University and environmental historian at Harvard Forest.

Table of Contents

Foreword Wes Jackson xiii

Acknowledgments xix

Introduction 1

1 Shaping the Agrarian Republic, 1780-1825 9

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, from Letters from an American Farmer (1782) 15

Alexander Hamilton, from Report on the Subject of Manufactures (1791) 27

The National Gazette, from "An Old Prophecy" (1792); and a letter to the editor (1792) 33

John Taylor of Caroline, from Arator (1813) 38

James Madison, from "An Address Delivered before the Albemarle, Va., Agricultural Society" (1818) 44

William Cobbett, from Journal of a Year's Residence in America (1819) 49

2 A Nation of Farmers: The Promise and Peril of American Agriculture, 1825-1860 57

Jesse Buel, from The Farmer's Companion (1839) 64

George Perkins Marsh, from "Address to the Agricultural Society of Rutland County" (1847) 72

Wilson Flagg, "Agricultural Progress" (1859) 81

George Henry Evans and the Working Men's Movement, "A Memorial to Congress" (1844); and "Vote Yourself a Farm" (1846) 86

George Washington Julian, "Speech before Congress on the Homestead Bill" (1851) 89

Edmund Ruffin, from "An Address on the Opposite Results of Exhausting and Fertilizing Systems of Agriculture" (1852) 96

3 The Machine in the Garden: The Rise of American Romanticism 105

Albert Brisbane, "False Association, Established by the Capitalists, Contrasted with True Association" (1846) 111

Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, from "Plan of the West Roxbury Community" (1842) 118

Louisa May Alcott, from "Transcendental Wild Oats" (1873) 123

Andrew Jackson Downing, "Cockneyism in the Country" (1849) 129

Susan Fenimore Cooper, from Rural Hours (1850) 133

Henry David Thoreau, from Walden (1854) 140

4 Agriculture in an Industrializing Nation, 1860-1910 149

Thomas Starr King, from "Address before the San Joaquin Valley Agricultural Society" (1862) 155

Orson Hyde, from "Instructions" (1867) 161

Hamlin Garland, from A Son of the Middle Border (1917) 165

Willa Cather, from My Antonia (1918) 171

L. L. Polk, from "Address before the Inter-States Convention of Farmers" (1887) 179

Ignatius Donnelly, for the People's Party, from the Omaha Platform of the People's Party (1892) 187

Luna Kellie, from "Stand Up for Nebraska" (1894) 192

5 Agrarians in an Industrial Nation, 1900-1945 199

Liberty Hyde Bailey Jr., from The Holy Earth (1915) 206

David Grayson, from Adventures in Contentment (1907) 215

Edwin G. Nourse, from "The Place of Agriculture in Modern Industrial Society" (1919) 222

Henry A. Wallace, from "Putting Our Lands in Order" (1934) 226

Ralph Borsodi, from Agriculture in Modern Life (1939) 230

John C. Rawe and Luigi G. Ligutti, from Rural Roads to Security: America's Third Struggle for Freedom (1940) 236

Louis Bromfield, from Pleasant Valley (1945) 243

6 Southern Agrarianism, 1925-1940 251

Twelve Southerners, from I'll Take My Stand (1930) 257

Andrew Nelson Lytle, from "The Hind Tit" (1930) 263

John Crowe Ransom, from "The Aesthetic of Regionalism" (1934) 272

Allen Tate, from "Notes on Liberty and Property" (1936) 277

H. L. Mencken, from "The South Astir" (1935) 283

Ned Cobb (Nate Shaw), from All God's Dangers (1974) 287

7 Back to the Land Again, 1940-Present 299

Aldo Leopold, from "The Farmer as a Conservationist" (1939) 305

Helen Nearing and Scott Nearing, from Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World (1954) 311

Earl L. Butz, from "Agribusiness in the Machine Age" (1960) 322

Victor Davis Hanson, from The Land Was Everything: Letters from an American Farmer (2000) 326

Hayden Carruth, "Marshall Washer" (1978) 340

Wes Jackson, from "Becoming Native to Our Places" (1994) 346

Wendell Berry, "Seven Amish Farms" (1981) 358

Conclusion: American Agrarianism in the Twenty-first Century 369

Bibliography 377

Selection Credits 391

Index 393

Editorial Reviews

"American Georgics is a gem, chock-full of essays and excerpts that are invaluable to an understanding of farming and conservation, and driven by a vision of what landscape and husbandry might become in the United States if we as a nation could think more holistically about what would most benefit us. It is also a wonderful resource for teaching and a step in the direction espoused by Leopold, Jackson and others in this anthology: that through dissemination of knowledge and better education, we might be able to redirect our culture toward a fuller appreciation of our fertile, fragile planet."—Christine Casson, American Scientist

Christine Cassonn Scientist

"American Georgics is a gem, chock-full of essays and excerpts that are invaluable to an understanding of farming and conservation, and driven by a vision of what landscape and husbandry might become in the United States if we as a nation could think more holistically about what would most benefit us. It is also a wonderful resource for teaching and a step in the direction espoused by Leopold, Jackson and others in this anthology: that through dissemination of knowledge and better education, we might be able to redirect our culture toward a fuller appreciation of our fertile, fragile planet."—Christine Casson, American Scientist

American Scientist - Christine Casson

Won Honorable Mention for the 2011 New England Book Festival in the Compilations/Anthologies category. This award is given by the JM Northern Media family of festivals, and sponsored by the Larimar St. Croix Writers Colony, eDivvy, Shophanista and Westside Websites

New England Book Festival - Compilations/Anthologies Honorable Mention

Won Honorable Mention for the 2011 New England Book Festival in the Compilations/Anthologies category. This award is given by the JM Northern Media family of festivals, and sponsored by the Larimar St. Croix Writers Colony, eDivvy, Shophanista and Westside Websites

— Compilations/Anthologies Honorable Mention

New England Book Festival

“[A] handsome, useful volume, with a graceful foreword by Wes Jackson.”—Books in Heat

Books in Heat

This anthology in the 'Yale Agrarian Studies' series constitutes much more than the excerpts carefully selected from American agriculture's agrarian lineage. The introductory essays preceding each chapter's selections explain almost as well as the excerpts themselves the difficulty of reducing American agrarianism to a form easily understood....Highly recommended.”—Choice

Choice