1906 - Agriculture

Agriculture

Russia's new prime minister P. A. Stolypin introduces agrarian reforms to end the communal (mir) system of landholding that has existed since 1861. His ukase issued November 3 permits peasants to withdraw from communes as of January 1, 1907; receive their shares of the land; and own and operate the land privately. By 1915 some 2,755,633 peasants will have filed applications to leave the communes and more than 2 million will have left (see Lenin, 1922; Stalin, 1928).

The U.S. corn crop exceeds 3 billion bushels, up from 2 billion in 1885 (see 1963).

The King Ranch of Texas grows by acquisition to cover nearly a million acres with 75,000 head of cattle and nearly 10,000 horses (see 1885; 1940).

Barbed-wire inventor Joseph F. Glidden dies at De Kalb, Ill., October 9 at age 93.

An ice storm freezes Florida's citrus groves.

California orange growers begin to set out Valencia orange seedlings to raise fruit that will mature in the summer and make the state a year-round source of oranges, but most California oranges continue to be the Washington navels introduced in 1875.

Commercial kiwifruit cultivation begins in New Zealand. Native to China's Yangzi valley, the berry of a woody vine (actinidia sinensis) is grown from plants collected by a British botanist at the turn of the century and brought to the West, where it is known as the Chinese gooseberry.