The Earth as Modified by Human ActionMarsh, George P. (George Perkins)
History
The Earth as Modified by Human Action
Marsh, George P. (George Perkins)
Conservation of natural resources; Human geography; Nature -- Effect of human beings on; Physical geography
[Footnote: There is a falling off since 1860 of 11,000,000 pounds in the
quantity of maple sugar and of more than a million gallons of maple
molasses. The high price of cane sugar during and since the late civil
war must have increased the product of maple sugar and molasses beyond
what it otherwise would have been, but the domestic warfare on the woods
has more than compensated this cause of increase.] To all this we are to
add 27,000,000 tons of hay,--produced partly by new, partly by long
known, partly by exotic and partly by native herbs and grasses, the
value of $21,000,000 in garden vegetables chiefly of European or Asiatic
origin, 3,000,000 gallons of wine, and many minor agricultural products.
[Footnote: Raenie, Bochmeria tenacissima, a species of Chinese nettle
producing a fibre which may be spun and woven, and which unites many of
the properties of silk and of linen, has been completely naturalized in
the United States, and results important to the industry of the country
are expected from it.]
The weight of this harvest of a year would be many times the tonnage of
all the shipping of the United States at the close of the year
1870--and, with the exception of the maple sugar, the maple molasses,
and the products of the Western prairie lands and of some small Indian
clearings, it was all grown upon lands wrested from the forest by the
European race within little more than two hundred years. The wants of
Europe have introduced into the colonies of tropical America the sugar
cane, [Footnote: The sugar cane was introduced by the Arabs into Sicily
and Spain as early as the ninth century, and though it is now scarcely
grown in those localities, I am not aware of any reason to doubt that
its cultivation might be revived with advantage. From Spain it was
carried to the West Indies, though different varieties have since been
introduced into those Islands from other sources.] the coffee plant, the
orange and the lemon, all of Oriental origin, have immensely stimulated
the cultivation of the former two in the countries of which they are
natives, and, of course, promoted agricultural operations which must
have affected the geography of those regions to an extent proportionate
to the scale on which they have been pursued.
USEFUL AMERICAN PLANTS GROWN IN EUROPE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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