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mark sturges St. Lawrence University Founding Farmers Jefferson, Washington, and the Rhetoric of Agricultural Reform From the 1780s to the 1820s, American political leaders often responded to problems of soil exhaustion and western emigration by promoting a dual program of agricultural reform and domestic manufacturing. They believed that a better system of land management and a more self-sufficient domestic economy could ensure social and political stability while still allowing for national progress and prosperity. Combining economic and ethical modes of improvement, they urged American farmers to stay put, to adopt more efficient practices of soil conservation, crop rotation, and livestock production, and to develop a more permanent sense of place. While establishing a number of agricultural societies and engaging in their own personal experiments, these leaders also harnessed the written word, cultivating a vision of enlightened agriculture in a variety of literary genres, from natural history to georgic poetry, travel narratives to agricultural addresses, private letters to public reports. Such writings demonstrate an incipient ecological awareness and express a growing anxiety about the political and environmental durability of the United States. If Americans elevated personal profit above the common good, these leaders feared, then the fragile ecosystem of
Early American Literature – University of North Carolina Press
Published: Nov 18, 2015
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