Thanks to all who responded on the ante-bellum agricultural study  
question. That has certainly given me a good start on getting into  
useful literature.

Moving forward a bit, are there studies of post-Civil War and 20th  
century agricultural productivity figures that have useful stats over  
the years to show the rise of the mechanical era in agriculture?

I have seen some by Googling but there are large gaps. For instance,  
now one farmer with seasonal help can manage 2000 acres of crops. I  
have figures for somewhere in the 1930's but would like to be able to  
graph the increases over time and then use the rural/urban X graph to  
show the decrease in agricultural manual laborer needs.

What would be really interesting is to see how productivity fared  
after the Civil War until the rise of self-propelled machinery in the  
early 20th century.

Thanks in advance.

Lyle Browning

______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html