Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
After working the land during the growing season, Michigan farmers often were
employed to cut and haul timber to riverbanks, so the spring runoff could transport
logs to Lake Michigan for subsequent shipment to the thriving Chicago market
(Cronon 1991). The interplay between forest and agricultural resources played an
important historical role in the growth and sustainability of the emerging farm-
steads in the northern NCR: the availability of timber provided an initial source of
income and made it possible to construct farm buildings such as barns, silos, and
houses.
The Advent of Hybrid Corn and the Rise of Soybean
Open pollinated corn (i.e., corn that is naturally pollinated and produces fertile
seeds) reached a yield plateau by 1900 in Illinois (Hudson 1994). Efforts to increase
yield further by selecting seed from the best corn plants led to corn yields of only 4.4
Mg ha −1 (70 bushels per acre) in 1920 under ideal growing conditions. The discov-
ery of hybrid vigor in corn led to single cross hybrids by 1934 that produced consis-
tently higher yields (Weaver 1946). By 1940 hybrid corn was widely adopted and
resulted in more than just increased yields (Hudson 1994): corn hybrids also has-
tened the shift to mechanization on account of greater stalk strength and increased
demands for nitrogen and other nutrients that could more conveniently be sup-
plied with fertilizers than with leguminous cover crops or manure (Robertson and
Vitousek 2009). Fertilizers made yields profitable on even poor-quality soils. The
widespread use of hybrids enabled more corn production west of the Mississippi
River, enhanced by government-supported irrigation subsidies. In addition, north-
ern corn production increased because hybrids performed well during a short grow-
ing season with long day length. These advances stimulated greater production and
caused major overproduction of corn, depressing its market value.
After World War I, consumers' food preferences changed, causing an increased
demand for vegetable oils rather than lard or “pig fat” (Hudson 1994). This cul-
tural shift—combined with overproduction of corn and hogs—reduced demand and
value and stimulated government subsidies for corn and hog farmers to reduce pro-
duction. Disincentives for corn led the way for soybean, introduced to the United
States by Benjamin Franklin, to become a new cash crop for the Corn Belt region,
quickly replacing oats as a rotation crop (Hudson 1994). Soybean futures trading
began in Chicago in 1936. Soybean oil meal was used by livestock and poultry
producers as well as pet food manufacturers because of its high protein content
(Hudson 1994). Other uses were also explored—for example, in 1936 Henry Ford
Farms established 4900 ha (12,108 acres) of soybean in Michigan to explore soy-
beans for use in both food and industry, including soy-based plastics that could be
used in cars. Ford had developed a laboratory to discover industrial uses for farm
products (“chemurgy”) then used mainly for food, with the aim of making farming
more profitable (Lewis 1976).
Soybean adoption in the NCR was helped by the fact that farmers could
plant soybeans at about the same time as corn with only minor adjustments in
farming equipment. By the 1940s—even though no one in the United States had
grown the crop commercially before 1920—soybean had become established
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