12 OUR USE OF THE LAND 



There is a second important reason for this continued pros' 

 perity of Lancaster County. The soil was so good that it 

 abundantly repaid the conscious efforts of these people to 

 treat it well. This brings us to the second of the three forces 

 that control the use of land. 



ECONOMIC CONTROLS OF LAND USE 



The limestone soil of Lancaster County yielded rich crops. 

 They gave the farmer money with which to pay his taxes, build 

 his wide stone barns, buy what little he needed. The New 

 Englander rarely had soil that was half as good as the 

 Hagerstown limestone of the Lancaster Valley. The north" 

 eastern corner of the United States was the one area that 

 did not produce a large surplus of agricultural crops at some 

 point in its history. The soil was very stony and could be 

 cleared for the plow only with immense labor. A large part of 

 New England is best suited for timber growing, but the forests 

 have never been well-managed, and so have contributed less 

 than they could to farm income. 



The southern planter was also at a disadvantage when com' 

 pared with the Lancaster County farmer. He was beset with 

 the problems which came from his large investment in land 

 and slaves. To get money to pay his heavy expense, a planter 

 tried to get everything out of the soil it would give. To have 

 rotated cotton with a less profitable crop would have meant 

 less money coming in at harvest. Not to rotate crops meant the 

 inevitable destruction of the soil. The planter didn't raise enough 

 stock to produce manure for his fields, and commercial fertiliz' 

 ers were unknown during the heyday of southern cotton. In 

 the long run, the cotton planter either had to move to new land 

 or fail. His prosperous days lasted no longer than the fertility 

 of his rapidly declining fields. 



From the point of view of economics, the most powerful 

 force affecting the use of the land in the United States was the 



