1874 - Agriculture

Agriculture

Turkey red wheat arrives in America with German-speaking Mennonites from Russia's Crimea (see population, 1872). The Santa Fe Railroad has brought the Mennonites to Kansas, where the road has been granted 3 million acres of land along its right of way and needs farmers who will occupy the land and produce crops that will generate freight revenue. Santa Fe official Carl R. Schmidt went to Russia last year and brought over a Mennonite delegation to see possible sites for settlement. He has obtained passage of a law in the Kansas legislature giving exemption from military service to those who oppose war on religious grounds, has offered free passage to Kansas plus free transport of furniture, and set up temporary living quarters. The first Mennonites arrive August 16 at Hillsboro in Marion County. The 163 pioneers from 34 families pay in gold to buy 8,000 acres from the Santa Fe. They found the village of Gnadenau. A second group of 600 follows, then a third group of 1,100, and by fall the Mennonites are arriving by the thousands, each family bringing its hard, drought-resistant, and high-yielding Turkey Red seed wheat obtained originally from Turkey and planted in the Crimea for years (see 1895).

The first Peavey grain elevator goes up at Sioux City, Iowa, where farm-equipment dealer Frank H. Peavey has heard customers complain of having no permanent market for their grain (see 1870). Peavey and his original partners were nearly wiped out by a fire in 1871, the 6,000-bushel "blind horse" elevator erected with a new partner is powered literally by a blind horse walking in an endless circle while towing a post atttached to an axle at the center of a circle. The facility saves farmers from having to haul wagonloads of grain back to the farm because they could find no buyer in town, and it will be followed by warehouses that Peavey will build with partner J. S. Meckling along the Dakota Southern Railway between Sioux City and Yankton, South Dakota. Peavey will persuade Minneapolis flour mills that he can provide a steady supply of wheat, and he will pioneer in the mass buying and selling of grain (see 1884).

The Appleby harvester is introduced by John F. Appleby, who organizes the Appleby Reaper Works at Mazomanie, Wisconsin, while continuing to work on developing an automatic binder (see binder, 1872; knotting device, 1878).

The first shipment of Montana cattle for eastern markets arrives at the railhead at Ogden in Utah Territory, where cattleman James Forges has driven it from the Sun River range of Conrad Kohrs.

A decade of drought begins on part of the western U.S. cattle range while other parts enjoy plenty of rain (see 1886).

George Perkins Marsh prepares a paper on the feasibility of irrigating western lands at the request of the U.S. commissioner of agriculture (see environment, 1864). Irrigation projects are possible, writes Marsh, if they are undertaken on a river-basin scale after thorough hydrological surveys "under Government supervision, from Government sources of supply" (see Powell, 1878).

British farm wages fall, farm workers strike in the east of England, and an agricultural recession begins that will lead to an exodus of farm workers into the growing mill towns. British agriculture has been undercut by foreign producers of grain and meat and begins a long decline.