Using imported heirloom grains and fruits, Spanish explorers, fur traders, missionaries, and some Native Americans planted subsistence gardens in the Pacific Northwest. After immigration surged in 1843, it took a surprisingly short time for the region’s fertile lands to become a commercial agricultural powerhouse.
Demand for food exploded with the industrial revolution as well as the urbanization of Europe and eastern America, and the doors of international export opened wide. Agribusiness expanded to meet the need.
By 1890, advancements in mechanization, seed quality, irrigation, and sustainable practices had spurred a farming boom. Columbia Basin irrigation and the development of synthetic fertilizers, as well as Cooperative Extension efforts and impressive work by agricultural researchers greatly boosted regional production. Harvest Heritage explores the people, history, and major influences that shaped and transformed the Pacific Northwest’s flourishing agrarian economy.
Table of Content
Contents
Preface
Foreword
Introduction
I: Fur Trade Farming
II: The British-Russian Contract
III: Missions and Migrations
IV: Frontier Farming to Global Trade
V: Cradles to Combines
VI: Hybridization at Home and Abroad
VII: Grass, Gaines, and the Green Revolution
Epilogue: Swords into Plowshares
Appendix I: The Puget Sound Agricultural Company Farm Year
Appendix II: Pacific Northwest Heirloom Grain Development Chronology
Appendix III: Pacific Northwest Wheat Variety Prevalence (1919/1920)
Appendix IV: Gaines Wheat Pedigree
Appendix V: List of Northwest Heirloom Grains
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Alexander C. Mc Gregor is president and chief executive officer of the Mc Gregor Company, a fertilizer and farm supply firm. A businessman, educator, and writer, he has served on boards at Whitman College and Washington State University and has been active in the Washington Association of Wheat Growers. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington. His dissertation, Counting Sheep, chronicles four Scottish immigrants as they struggle to establish a ranching empire.
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