6. Descriptions of the Collections


chemists who found new ways to eliminate the enemies of crops; those in the Agricultural Extension
Service who spread the word across the state; soil conservationists who taught farmers how to terrace their
land to prevent topsoil from running off; the rural electric cooperatives who brought cheap electricity;
and John and Mack Rust, brothers near Pine Bluff, Arkansas, who built an odd looking machine that
could pick cotton. These developments combined to change the face of Arkansas forever.

The major portion of literature documenting agriculture and rural life is located at the University of
Arkansas Libraries in Fayetteville, in the Special Collections Division. Such materials have long been a
collecting focus. In addition to hundreds of University-related publications, Special Collections also has
many other publications pertaining to the state's rural history that were printed outside Arkansas, such as
Norman Thomas's The Plight of the Share-Cropper, published in 1939 by the League for Industrial
Democracy. Such publications were often found in manuscript collections and subsequently transferred
to the Division's Arkansiana Library, the richest source of published materials associated with Arkansas.
Other important materials are found at the Arkansas History Commission in Little Rock and at the
libraries at the campuses of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and the University of Arkansas at
Monticello.

Over the course of the project the University of Arkansas Libraries, in cooperation with other libraries in
the state, will develop a comprehensive bibliography of published materials important to the study of
agriculture and rural life in Arkansas and the South. The project will employ a three-person scholarly
review panel to rank titles according to their priority as research resources for humanities studies, and
target the most important 25% of a universe of approximately 9.000 volumes to be preserved in a
subsequent project. Details of the Libraries' project staffing and costs are found in Section 5.5.2 of the
proposal's Plan of Work.


6.3 CALIFORNIA


"The spring is beautiful in California. Valleys in which the fruit blossoms are fragrant pink and white
waters in a shallow sea. Then the first tendrils of the grapes swelling from the old gnarled vines, cascade
down to cover the trunks. The full green hills are round and green as breasts. And on the level vegetable
lands are the mile-long rows of pale green lettuce and the spindly little cauliflowers, the gray-green
unearthly artichoke plants." (John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, New York, Viking, 1939, p. 308)

Steinbeck's words epitomize the attraction of California to the Joads, and other Okies, and the millions of
settlers who came to the "Golden State" seeking the richness of the California earth. Generations of
settlers, ranging from the Spanish, the Mexicans, the Japanese, Chinese and Russians --as well as those
from other parts of the United States--came to a land first inhabited by the native Americans. From 1760
on, California became a mecca for agriculture, and the literature documenting its importance starts with
the diaries of the Spanish missionaries. In many ways the history of California's agriculture parallels that
of the rest of the United States, but over a much shorter time period. Claude Hutchison, in his History of
the University of California and the Land Grant Colleges (1946), notes that "crowded into a short span of
less than a hundred years, the commercial agriculture of California has passed through all of the stages
exemplified by several centuries of the world's agricultural history."

When the first settlers arrived in California, bringing their agricultural heritage with them, there were
virtually no native crops. The American Indians who roamed the region survived on fishing, hunting,
and seeds--principally acorns. Spanish missionaries cultivated the first crops, beginning with wheat, fruit
and nuts. Father Serra brought cattle and seeds, and the missionaries taught the Indians how to farm.
The Spanish also introduced cotton and actively experimented with crops--an activity vividly discussed in
the literature of the time. Mission gardens and orchards were begun and aqueducts and other forms of