A book for a varied audience: college students of agriculture and sociology; high school students of vocation agriculture; members of the American Agricultural Economics Association; people with a long-standing background in agriculture; and other readers interested in 20th century agriculture. The book reads like a story and is supplemented with excellent photographs, contrasting past practices with modern technology.

In this comprehensive history, R. Douglas Hurt traces the decline and fall of agriculture in the Confederate States of America. The backbone of the southern economy, agriculture was a source of power that southerners believed would ensure their independence. But, season by season and year by year, Hurt convincingly shows how the disintegration of southern agriculture led to the decline of the Confederacy's military, economic, and political power. He examines regional variations in the Eastern and Western Confederacy, linking the fates of individual crops and different modes of farming and planting to the wider story. After a dismal harvest in late 1864, southerners--faced with hunger and privation throughout the region--ransacked farms in the Shenandoah Valley and pillaged plantations in the Carolinas and the Mississippi Delta, they finally realized that their agricultural power, and their government itself, had failed. Hurt shows how this ultimate lost harvest had repercussions that lasted well beyond the end of the Civil War. Assessing agriculture in its economic, political, social, and environmental contexts, Hurt sheds new light on the fate of the Confederacy from the optimism of secession to the reality of collapse.

"This book recounts William Latta's far-reaching influence on agriculture at the university, throughout Indiana, and on a national level. Recognized as the Father of the School of Agriculture and of Extension at Purdue, Latta was an early and tireless promoter of the university and what it could do for the people of the state. From developing the four-year agriculture program, to conducting practical agricultural research prior to the creation of Purdue's Agricultural Experiment Station, to leading Purdue's agricultural outreach efforts to bring the university to the people, Latta's contributions are still evident in Purdue's modern-day agricultural programs." "Latta's story traces the history of agriculture at Purdue, showing agriculturists, historians, and the Purdue community where we've been and the foundation upon which we continue to build today's teaching, research, and Extension programs."--BOOK JACKET.