EESB16H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Continuous Track, New World Crops, Potassium Nitrate
8 Apr 2015
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Potatoes introduced to europe, widely adopted as a better source of calories than rye: could be grown between rye cycles. Maize also more nutritious and better converter of solar energy than wheat and barley. Maize, peanuts and sweet potatoes were introduced and widely adopted. Corn belt had an agricultural base of maize, winter wheat, oats, and clover or alfalfa. Corn grew well on freshly cleared land, rotation keeps the soil fertile. Fattening of pigs and cattle with corn feed. Wheat, cotton, citrus, peanuts and sugarcane came to dominate in addition. Wheat turnip barley clover grown in succession each year in poor soil. Use of clover allowed fallow period to be reduced. Guano and nitrate began to be imported from south america in 1840s. Use was made of lime, marl iron work slag, ashes from coal. Use of maize seed, cotton seed and cakes for animal feed. Animals used to carry and then later to pull cultivating tools (ploughs and harrows)
