Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
America.
16
The signs of difficulties emerged in the mid-1870s, when a
series of cool and rainy summers led to bad harvests and catle diseases
that reached a crisis point in 1879. In the same period the first wave of
American grain exports arrived in Britain and other European countries,
forcing the price of wheat in particular to lower and lower levels until
a mild recovery began in the mid-1890s. From 1873 to 1882 American
exports of wheat rose from 40 to 150 million bushels, displacing Russia
as the chief exporter of cereal grains. The largest share came to Britain.
17
Well before then, English interest in American agriculture had produced
an outpouring of articles and reports, a fair number having been writen
by authors who had observed American farming firsthand. Many reports
were writen by James Caird, a member of Parliament and the main
force behind the establishment in 1866 of the annual collection of British
agricultural statistics.
18
Touring America in 1858, he described the Mid-
west as “the greatest track of fertile land on the globe.”
19
In 1881 a royal
commission was set up to study the agricultural depression in England
and Wales. Recognizing American imports as one of the causes of this
depression, the report charged one of the commission's members, John
Clay, to gather evidence in the United States and report his findings. His
report lauded the workings of American wheat production and Ameri-
can rail, calling them at one point “miraculous.”
20
Other Europeans from
France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia who came to study the
American system agreed with Clay.
21
In France the Ministry of Agriculture's interest rose to new heights
in 1889, when the agricultural displays at the Universal Exposition in
Paris caused astonishment at the prodigious agrarian capacities of the
United States and other New World countries. In an 1891 report the en-
viable efficiency of the American system was described in some detail.
In the wheat trade, good yields on enormous acreages, cheap transport,
and the American system of grain elevators worked harmoniously, like
a gigantic, well-designed machine. The rail system alone was as huge as
the country, and its growth was remarkable. With more than 160,000
miles in operation in 1890, the U.S. rail system “has more than 19 times
as much railway line today as it did 30 years ago.”
22
In 1890 the figures
for the much smaller countries of France and Great Britain were about
23,000 and 18,000 miles, respectively.
23
