2. Significance of the Materials

 the use of migrant workers in agriculture --all of these influences shaped and were shaped by the cultural
 and economic landscape of agriculture and its communities.

 During the 19th century, the farm unit shifted its orientation from the family and the immediate
 community to the market, and to the expanding urban-industrial society. For nearly 100 years,
 employment in the American agricultural and food system remained nearly constant at about 35 million
 while the population soared. With these changing demographics came shifts in attitudes about rural life,
 community and family values, and the management of the farm enterprise. These shifts had a profound
 effect on farm families, on rural communities, and on the economy of the nation.

 The unprecedented growth in U.S. agricultural productivity during the 19th and early 20th centuries was
 based in part on the growth of the agricultural literature as a means of sharing and expanding the fund of
 agricultural knowledge. In 1820, farming was a self-sufficient enterprise with relatively few advances
 since colonial times. The average farmer was largely ignorant of the principles of animal and plant
 breeding, often hampered by superstitious beliefs, and typically skeptical of agricultural innovation.
 Agricultural publications before 1819 were few in number and difficult for the average farmer to obtain.
 Almanacs were the chief source of agricultural information. However after 1820, American writing on
 agriculture increased and, most importantly, the medium of the agricultural periodical appeared. By the
 1840's the U.S. had developed the largest farm readership in the world. Thus the content of these
 journals over a hundred-year period in U.S. history is an unparalleled resource for the study of cultural
 and social attitudes.

 Early farm journals were clearinghouses of general agricultural information. They borrowed liberally
 from each other and thus track the movement of information and ideas. As farmers left eastern farms
 with their dreams or despair and moved west, they brought their agricultural knowledge with them--a
 knowledge and experience often completely unsuited to the climate and topography that they found.
 The dreams of farmers and the cries of entrepreneurs mingle in the literature and documents of
 agriculture and rural life to tell the story of both success and bitter defeat, exaltation and catastrophe.
 The fate of the native Americans swept up and overrun by land-hungry pioneers is part of this story. The
 clash of Anglo culture with Spanish and Mexican culture in Florida, Texas, and California over land and
 agricultural tradition is a principal theme in U.S.-Mexican history. European and Asian immigrants
 brought their varied agricultural heritage with them to new lands and created the distinctive regional
 ethnic communities that became inexorably tied to the landscapes, farms, and rural communities of
 America.

 The establishment of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1862 and the passage of the Morrill Acts of
 1862 and 1890 (which founded the present-day system of land grant universities) further involved the
 federal government in agriculture and was followed by legislation that established state-level agriculture
 experiment stations and extension services. The growth of these organizations boosted agricultural
 research with a constant emphasis on practical applications within individual farms and farming
 communities. The local journals tracked the effects or lack of effects that new research and practices had
 on farming and rural life.

The remarkable history of federal-state cooperation in establishing a national network of experiment
stations, land grant universities, extension services, and 4-H clubs, is an example of the impact of
agriculture on the reach and methods of government. Government involvement in education, youth
programs, and scientific research all stem from early efforts to support and improve the nation's most
important industry: agriculture.

An emphasis on higher education and the emergence of agricultural research in the early part of the
twentieth century stimulated the production of scholarly treatises and journals that joined a panoply of
federal, state, and county documents. These resources now allow scholars to track both the evolution of