The profit of the earth : the global seeds of American agriculture / Courtney Fullilove.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fullilove, Courtney, author.

Contributor:

Class of 1953 Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Seeds--United States--History--19th century.

Seeds.

Seeds--Harvesting--United States--History--19th century.

Plant introduction--United States--History--19th century.

Plant introduction.

Seed industry and trade--United States--History--19th century.

Seed industry and trade.

Wheat--Breeding--United States--History--19th century.

Wheat.

Plant diversity conservation--United States--History--19th century.

Plant diversity conservation.

Seeds--Harvesting.

Wheat--Breeding.

History.

United States.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

280 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Summary:

Organized into three thematic parts, The Profit of the Earth is a narrative history of the collection, circulation, and preservation of seeds. Fullilove begins with the political economy of agricultural improvement, recovering the efforts of the US Patent Office and the nascent US Department of Agriculture to import seeds and cuttings for free distribution to American farmers. She then turns to immigrant agricultural knowledge, exploring how public and private institutions attempting to boost midwestern wheat yields drew on the resources of willing and unwilling settlers. Last, she explores the impact of these cereal monocultures on biocultural diversity, chronicling a fin-de-siecle Ohio pharmacists attempt to source Purple Coneflower from the diminishing prairie. Through these captivating narratives of improvisation, appropriation, and loss, Fullilove explores contradictions between ideologies of property rights and common use that persist in national and international development - ultimately challenging readers to rethink fantasies of global agricultures past and future.--AMAZON.

Contents:

Prologue: in the field

Field notes. "Green revolutions": hunting turkey wheat

Pt. 1. Collection: the political culture of seeds

The museum of seeds

Seed sharing in the Patent Office

Failures of tea cultivation in the American South

Field notes. "Local knowledge": what the pastoralist knew

Pt. 2. Migration: wheat culture and immigrant agricultural knowledge

For amber waves of grain

Spacious skies and economies of scale

Field notes. "Indigenous knowledge": diversity and endangerment

Pt. 3. Preservation: indigenous plants and the preservation of biocultural diversity

Elk's weed on the prairie

The allegory of the cave in Kentucky

Writing on the seed

Epilogue: in the gene bank.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Class of 1953 Fund.

ISBN:

9780226454863

022645486X

OCLC:

958585740