American Agriculture History Minute: Ethnicity in Early Agriculture

I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute.

Ethnicity made a difference in early American agriculture. German immigrants brought different practices and traditions to the New World than English, Scottish, or Irish farmers, for example. Each simply carried forward practices from their homeland, but with a lot more land to work with and fertile soil.

German farmers, for example, preferred using oxen to horses for plowing. Germans were heavily into row crops, while Scottish and Irish farmers were more comfortable, along with growing crops, herding cattle and herding sheep. All part of American agriculture history.

That’s today’s American Agriculture History Minute. I’m Mark Oppold. Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next time.