That the social relation that defines the origin of capital first
appears in agricultural production, and sinks its deepest roots into
English agriculture, is recognized by Marx.
Timing is everything.
s.a.
http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/2005_summer_fall/agronomist.htm
In Jefferson's era comparatively few farmers were concerned with
returning any vital elements back to the earth by methods such as
cropping, crop rotation, and fertilizers. In fact, the Virginia
Piedmont of his time was already played out by adverse agricultural
practices. In the short span of years that the area was opened for
European use, tobacco had become the chief crop; this, combined with
corn, the staple food crop, had taken a heavy toll on the productive
land. Erosion and soil exhaustion followed the pioneers as sloping
land was cleared of natural vegetation and continuously planted with
the same crops.
Under this endless sequence of tobacco and corn, planted in rows that
usually ran up and downhill, much of the virgin topsoil had been lost
by Jefferson's time. "The highlands where I live have be cultivated
about sixty years. The culture was tobacco and Indian corn long as
they would bring enough to pay the labour. Then they were turned out
Jefferson was concerned not only with current return from the land
but also with the effects of land abuse on posterity. Unlike his
contemporaries, he knew that the productive land of the United States
was not infinite. He acknowledged the prevailing attitude of his day
in a letter to George Washington in 1793. "
we can buy an acre of new
land cheaper than we can manure an old acre." Therefore, he was in
the forefront in experimenting with fertilizers to bring his land
back to productivity.
Not content to assume that animal manure would revitalize the soil,
he undertook tests to determine the exact number of cattle required
to fertilize a given area of land. He measured its effectiveness by
comparing yields of grain on manured fields with yields from an equal
area that was unfertilized.
===
http://www.monticello.org/jefferson/dayinlife/plantation/home.html
"To Labour for Another"
Thomas Jefferson made a habit of inspecting his plantation in the
afternoon to monitor the work of the 150 slaves who worked at
Monticello and his outlying farms. Always interested in measurements
and record-keeping, Jefferson made extensive notations about his
slaves and their duties in his Farm Book and Memorandum Books. For
instance, he noted the rations his overseer distributed, the number
of yards he purchased for clothing, the daily task required by
particular slaves, and the cost of items purchased for use in the kitchen.
Some of Jefferson's slaves lived and worked along Mulberry Row, a
1,000-foot-long road located on the mountaintop, just south of the
main house. Named for the mulberry trees planted along it (and
replanted in 1995), the road was the center of plantation activity at
Monticello from the 1770s until Jefferson's death in 1826. The known
buildings located along the street were stone and log dwellings,
storage buildings, a stable, a combination smokehouse and dairy, a
blacksmith shop that for some years also housed a nailery, a joinery,
a carpenter's shop, and a sawmill.
