64 Notes
Particulars of the Rural Economy of the United States (Alexandria, VA: Cottom
and Stewart, 803 ), 6.
0. how to promote soil improvements: Montgomery, Dirt, 4.
. waste as we please: Ibid., ; Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of
Virginia, ed. J. W. Randolph (Google Books, 8 ), 94 , https://books.google.
com/books?id=DTWttRSMtbYC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge
_summary_r&cad= 0 #v=onepage&q&f=false.
. “a miserable system of farming: Andrew Downing, “A Blunt Warn-
ing about Unsustainable Farming Practices in America,” in Smith, Food in
America, 46 – 49.
3. British capitulated their claim: “The Caribbean and the British Em-
pire,” British Empire Maproom, accessed November 4 , 0 7 , http://www.british
empire.co.uk/maproom/caribbean.htm.
4. sold off the Louisiana Territory: “Louisiana Purchase,” Office of the
Historian, accessed March 9 , 0 8 , https://history.state.gov/milestones/ 80
- 8 9 /louisiana-purchase.
. Alaska was bought from Russia: “Alaska Purchase,” Encyclopedia Bri-
tannica, accessed November 4 , 0 7 , https://www.britannica.com/print/article
/ 3 6.
6. tractors on farms had tripled: Montgomery, Dirt, 46.
7. nature was to blame: Zeynep Hansen and Gary Libecap, “Small
Farms, Externalities, and the Dust Bowl of the 930 s,” Journal of Political
Economy , no. 3 ( June 004 ): 66 – 94 , http://www.nber.org/papers/w 00
.pdf.
8. programs began paying farmers: Daniel Hellerstein, “The US Con-
servation Reserve Program: The Evolution of an Enrollment Mechanism,”
Land Use Policy 63 (April 0 7 ): 60 – 0 , https://doi.org/ 0 . 0 6 /j.landusepol
. 0 . 07. 0 7.
9. higher profits were more important: Alex Formuzis, “Here Today,
Gone Tomorrow: USDA Conservation Program for Sensitive Cropland
Wastes Billions of Tax Dollars,” Environmental Working Group, June 7 , 0 7 ,
https://www.ewg.org/release/here-today-gone-tomorrow-usda-conservation
-program-sensitive-cropland-wastes-billions-tax.
0. fast enough to sustain industrial agriculture: Montgomery, Dirt, 3.
. being depleted eighteen times faster: Natural Resources Conserva-
tion Service, “Soil Erosion,” US Department of Agriculture, accessed Novem-
ber 4 , 0 7 , https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs
4 p_ 0 0 .pdf.
. 3,200 football fields each day: “Farms Under Threat—The State of
America’s Farmland,” American Farmland Trust, May 9 , 0 8 , https://www