ABSTRACT
I N American economic history the part played by agriculture is of exceptional importance. Up to about 1870 America was predominantly an agricultural country. Seventy years later agriculture gave employment to less than a fifth of the American people, but this decline, great as it was, left agriculture still a major industry, and its fate was the subject of anxious and peculiar attention. More often in America, probably, than anywhere else in the world, the question is posed, Is agriculture an industry like any other? To this question America, in common with many European countries but unlike Britain, has returned, on the whole, a decided negative. And it is because of this —because the history of American agriculture and of America herself cannot be understood without understanding also something of American ideas about agriculture—that this aspect of American life presents an outstanding case of the importance, to a purely economic development, of history—tradition—folk lore—all confused hut all significant, and all essential to the formation of institutions, policies and practical results.
