No abstract

ABSTRACT. When American society, through deliberate government action, intervenes to preserve the family farm as the locus of “good” human values and “authentic” environmental conditions, the result can be described as a moral geography. Nowhere is this clearer than in the protection of traditional farming on the High, or Great, Plains through federal funding and programs. Protection began during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s; federal support came to a close with the passage of the 1996 farm bill. These shifts deserve assessment of historic American interests in the protection of an agricultural institution and of a region at risk.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. American Geographical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Geographical Review.ABSTRACT. When American society, through deliberate government action, intervenes to preserve the family farm as the locus of "good" human values and "authentic" environmental conditions, the result can be described as a moral geography. Nowhere is this clearer than in the protection of traditional farming on the High, or Great, Plains through federal funding and programs. Protection began during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s; federal support came to a close with the passage of the 1996 farm bill. These shifts deserve assessment of historic American interests in the protection of an agricultural institution and of a region at risk. Keywords: agricultural ethics, familyfarm, federal subsidies, High Plains, public policy.If my land has cried out against me, and its furrows have wept together; if I have eaten its yield without payment, and caused the death of its owners; let thorns grow instead of wheat, and foul weeds instead of barley. -Job 31: 38-40 l/hen farm bills came up for ritual debate in the U.S. Congress every five years, much rhetoric urged that funding be continued, in order to shore up the struggling family farm. The family farm was called the wellspring of American individualism, independence, and general goodness. For almost two centuries this article of faith has risen out of the mists of rural America. Over the last sixty years in particular, since the devastation of the 1930s Depression and Dust Bowl, Americans have legislated financial and institutional support to protect these iconic farmers. Federal action is only one response to farm problems, but it deserves special attention because it has the most far-ranging effects. Nowhere have federal safeguards been more visible than on the High, or Great, Plains. Comprehensive programs of federal price supports, low-cost loans, crop insurance, and agricultural extension directed billions of dollars to Plains people. President Franklin D. Roosevelt reflected popular opinion when he was said to have "a romantic faith in the Jeffersonian ideal of the independent yeoman living in bucolic abundance" (Fite 1981, 52). The same sentiments would be repeated in the Family Farm Income Act of 1960: "[T]he system of independent family farms was the beginning and foundation of free enterprise in America.... [I]t is an everpresent source of strength for democratic processes and the American ideal" (Fite This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:33:57 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW greatest thing that agriculture furnished this country is not food or fi...

No abstract

A study is described which examined the effect of a wide range of initial density and rectangularity (the ratio of between row to within row spacing) on the rate of machine planting in Pinus radiata. A factorial design, employing three levels of density (749, 1683, 4305 trees per hectare) and three levels of rectangularity (1:1, 2:1, 4:1), was replicated three times in each of two well separated localities.It was found that the cost of planting falls as spacing at given density becomes more rectangular or as density is reduced, the effect of rectangularity becoming more pronounced as density is reduced. The results have been expressed in a mathematical model that can be applied over a wide range of densities and rectangularities. Savings of over 200Jo can be made by moderate moves towards either rectangular spacing or lower density, and by closer supervision of planting operations if density inadvertently tends to be too high.