CHAPTER V 



THE GENESIS OF AGRARIANISM IN THE 

 UNITED STATES 



The history of agrarianism in western Europe and 

 the United States has followed parallel lines. We 

 shall see also that agrarian tendencies in the United 

 States in recent times are analogous to those of 

 western Europe since the World War. In western 

 Europe and the United States the seed of agrarian- 

 ism was sown deep in the soil of land tenure policies. 

 The influences of the Industrial Revolution on the 

 agricultural population and the economic problems 

 that this transformation produced had much the 

 same effect in America in the nineteenth century as 

 similar influences had on English life in the latter 

 half of the eighteenth century. It is necessary to 

 review briefly the history of some early colonial 

 policies and trace their effects for the purpose of 

 giving adequate perspective to the agrarian move- 

 ments of the nineteenth century and the early part 

 of the present century. 



Colonial Policy of Land Settlement 



The genesis of agrarian tendencies in the United 

 States may be traced to the methods adopted in the 



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