an appreciation of the fact that in order to under- 

 stand our political history, no little attention must be 

 given to the economic history of agriculture. A con- 

 sideration of the influence of the agricultural indus- 

 try on our foreign relations and the making of com- 

 mercial and other treaties will further emphasize this 

 same fact. It was the demand of the southwestern 

 farmers for the free and unrestricted navigation of 

 the Mississippi which led directly to the purchase 

 of Louisiana from Napoleon. It was the interfer- 

 ence with American shipping and the seizure of 

 American food products which led to the war of 1812. 

 It has been generally conceded that England's need 

 of cotton was chiefly responsible for that country's 

 sympathetic attitude toward the South during the 

 civil war; it is equally significant that her imperative 

 need of northern wheat operated effectively to keep 

 England officially neutral. These illustrations are 

 sufficient to suggest the importance of our agrarian 

 history in the study of American diplomacy; our na- 

 tion's historians have been too much inclined to take 

 a provincial view of the national past the " short- 

 view," as the late Rear-Admiral Mahan has expressed 

 it. It is time to abandon this attitude, and to take 

 the larger or the " long-view " of the forces which 

 have shaped our destinies. 



3. Our agricultural history offers an excellent op- 

 portunity for the study of the lives and services of 

 eminent men who have profoundly affected American 

 economic development. Consider the influence of Eli 

 Whitney on the history of the cotton industry, or that 

 of Cyrus Hall McCormick on the history of the cereal 

 production. It is not too much to say that the tri- 

 umph of the north over the south in 1865 was the 

 triumph of the reaper over the cotton gin, and that 

 McCormick and Whitney deserve as great a place in 

 American history as U. S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. 

 Or consider the influence of Franklin, Washington, 

 and Jefferson on the early formation of agricultural 

 societies ; of Thomas H. Benton and Galusha A. Grow 



