Cronon: Ch. 7: A World of Fields and Fences.

ISS 310

People and Environment

Prof. Alan Rudy

1/31/02

1. Main Points? What is he talking about? Why?

Fields and Fences:

Nature, Society, Politics Economics Then Nature -- Forestry Now Social Nature -- Agriculture Hmmm, am I imposing this on the text? is it

there already? Does it help to understand a book to impose

order on it that may or may not have been what the author intended?

Maize

Both Indians and English grew corn.– What was different?

Spatially -- in communities and in fieldsTemporally -- seasonally; re: use/property

– year-round ownership rather than seasonal use

Mammals

Both consumed grazing animals.– What was different?

Spatially -- in communities and in fields/wildTemporally -- seasonally, re: use/property

– year-round ownership rather than use after killing

Mammals, ag. and food

Greatest mammalian differentiation… grazing mammals: hunting wild deer and moose rather than growing cattle, oxen, horses, swine, sheep, and goats.

Mammals and Money

Most reliable source of income (with a minimum of labor) locally, salted to Europe, or shipped to Caribbean plantations.– Regular complaints of Indian “theft” of

livestock – but its not theft under usufruct.– This kind of property relies on FENCES– Cronon suggests that w/o livestock colonists

might have been limited to Indian-scale ecological effects and usufruct based natural resource relations.

Fences, Commons and Mammals

However, grazing livestock in the commons meant that damage done by English livestock to unfenced Indian lands legally necessitated payment of damages! – FUNNY, but always on English legal terms

(Indians had to capture marauding animals ALIVE and HOLD them

– HOW? w/o fences?

Fences, Commons and Mammals II

The long run effect is that Indians were forced to develop fenced agriculture – even when the English had to build the fences at first (though Indians then had to tend for them)

See sidewalks in the 20th C: they put in the sidewalks but I have to keep them clear and repair them when the city’s trees break the concrete.)

Three little piggies...

SWINE:– Reproduced really fast, will eat virtually

anything, can be turned out to the woods and fend for themselves.

– Swine pops get so high, weed/pest animals, they could be killed if caught in fields (by English, not Indian, farmers.

– Eventually, open season on feral pigs, repealed, recalled, round and round -- finally had to be stied.

… and some wolves.

Wolves: bounties (set a price for wild animals – too little enforcement labor, difficult to figure out who pays, and whether anyone has paid before…)

Wolves: became a reason to drain and clearing swamps.– WHAT?!– “Entire ecological communities were thus

threatened because they represented ‘an annoyance and prejudice to the town… both by the miring of cattle and sheltering of wolves and vermin.’” (133)

Wolves and workers

“Whereas most livestock in England had been watched over by individual herders, labor was scarce enough in New England that only the most valuable animals… could generally be guarded.”

Labor, Labor, Labor and the Law:

Either fences had to be built and maintained (often w/ regulations about such things) or the agricultural damaged by semi-domesticated privately “owned” animals had to be dealt with – AGAIN BECAUSE OF THE SHORTAGE OF LABOR.

LLL and the Law II

The regulations necessitated enforcement – folks going around checking to make sure people kept their fences in good repair (large animals can of course damage them at will) so that lazy farmers with bad fences couldn’t make illegitimate claims…– Now, is this productive labor? Enforcement of

fence viability to protect use of the commons by private individuals? Did the Indians have these issues?

Key Quote about agriculture, mammals, space and property.

“Through the agency of the fence viewers and the formal litigation of the courts, towns took an increasing responsibility not only for enforcing the abstract boundaries between adjacent tracts of real estate but for guaranteeing that those boundaries were marked by the physical presence of fences.” (135)

More on quote

Private property generates abstract “plots” which have to be made real by legislative/juridical action and real boundary markers (whether fences or other ways):

THIS IS BECAUSE PRIVATE PROPERTY IS NOT REAL/NATURAL – IT IS A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS, SOCIETY AND NATURE WHICH EXISTS IN SOME PLACES AND TIMES AND NOT IN OTHERS.

We make it real by acting as if it always has been so, but now you know it hasn’t always been so.

More quotes:

“Fences thus marked off, not only the map of a settlement’s property rights, but its economic activities and economic relationships as well. At the center of a family’s holdings was its house lot… [n]earby were the outbuildings where animals spent their winters…. [Feeding animals in the winter] necessitated reserving large tracts of land for mowing… all other lands were committed to grazing, including upland woodlots where families cut their fuel and lumber.” (137-138)

Another quote

Gender & “Early land divisions had been done communally… Later divisions were generally made through the abstract mechanism of land speculation… ignored both the ecological characteristics of a given tract of land and its intended agricultural...”(138)

Animals, plows and weeds

Grazing facilitated the introduction of European grasses, weeds, woody thorn-bearing plants etc. -- adapted to the “harsh requirements of grazing.”

Weeds grow rapidly, germinate easily and attack both ag and wild lands -- changing the opportunity structure for indigenous plants… making some of them pests.

And we’ve not even mentioned the plow, which tore up whole ecosystems, or over-extended use, soil depletion or erosion… all tied to ag mammals and private property.

Soil Compaction

Soil compaction: 1. harden,

2. reduce oxygen,

3. curtail root growth,

4. exacerbate toxic chemical production/residues,

5. reduce carrying capacity for moisture, and

6. increased erosion.

Soil Erosion

Erosion/watershed changes: 1. filling in ponds and lakes,

2. changing top soil sedimentation rates during annual floods,

3. streams and small rivers dried up,

4. shipping lanes had to be dredged or warfs extended,

5. shoreline grasslands became shifting dunes, and

6. overgrazed small islands disappeared

Soil Exhaustion and Conclusion

Soil Exhaustion: A. maize monoculture w/o legumes, B. cattle graze unharvested plant material, C. abandoned maize fields grazed rather than

fallowed, and D. uncollected manure (tried fish [ran out due to

dams], ashes [deplete forests for soil, oops].)

AGAIN, NATURE (SOILS, MAMMALS, PESTS, WATER) IS NOT AT FAULT -- IT’S ALL ABOUT HOW WE ORGANIZE OUR SIDE