316 THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL REVIEW 



of Middle Western agriculture that are particularly deserving 

 of the attention of the historians.* 



As yet there is no comprehensive volume or series of studies 

 on the subject. For general treatments, one must depend on sum- 

 maries in the better economic history texts, and whenever there 

 is need of detailed information one is obliged to turn to widely 

 scattered articles, chapters, and monographs which, at best, 

 cover the subject only as a woefully incomplete and ill-fitted 

 patchwork. Although many of these writings hold a high place 

 in American historiography, their usefulness as a contribution 

 to the historj" of the American basic industry is often vitiated by 

 the fact that they have usually been written as political, social, or 

 diplomatic history. In other words, agriculture and rurality have 

 been reached from the outside rather than used as the starting 

 point. 



Of the twelve states constituting the Middle West, only Wis- 

 consin is provided with a modern history of its agriculture." In 

 this respect, Joseph Schafer's excellent summary may well serve 

 as a model.® The other volumes of the same author's Domesdaif 

 Book series and Frederick Merk's Economic History of Wiscoti- 

 sin during the Civil War Decade also deserve mention because 

 of their contents and the significance of the methods used. E. V. 



•* For three earlier treatments, see William J. Trimble, ' ' The Agrarian History of 

 the United States as a Subject for Research," Proceedings of the Mississippi Val- 

 ley Historical Association, VIII (1914-15), 81-90, which also appeared in slightly 

 revised fonn in the History Teacher's Magazine (Philadelphia), VI (1915), 135-137; 

 Louis B. Schmidt, "An Unworked Field of Mississippi Valley History, " Iowa Joixrna? 

 of History and Politics (Iowa City), XXI (1923), 94-111; and the "General In- 

 troduction" by Harry J. Carman and Rexford G. Tugwell to their Columbia Uni- 

 versity Studies in the History of American Agriculture series as given in Jarcd Eliot, 

 Essays upon Field Husbandry in Nnv England and other Papers, 1748-176S (New 

 York, 1934), p. v-xii. 



For other citations to pertinent articles of a similar nature, see Everett E. Ed- 

 wards, "An Annotated Bibliography on the Materials, the Scope, and the Signifi- 

 cance of American Agricultural History," Agricultural History, VI (1932), 38-43, 

 which was later issued in revised form as a mimeographed publication of the United 

 States Bureau of Agricultural Economics with the title. References on Agricultural 

 History as a Field of Research and Study (Washington, November, 1934). 



6 In this discussion, the Middle West is assumed to include the East North Cen- 

 tral and West North Central divisions as used in the United States Census reports, 

 i.e., Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North 

 Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. 



"Joseph Schafer, A History of Agriculture in Wisconsin (Madison, 1922). 



