1. Drought-resistant crop varieties
Crops were imported from the steppe to the Great
Plains by migrants, in particular Mennonites, who
moved from today’s southern Ukraine to Kansas in the
1870s. They brought over a hard, red, winter wheat that
became known as ‘Turkey Red’.
Further crops were imported by the USDA from the steppe at the turn of the
twentieth century as varieties from the steppes had proved their worth in drought
conditions on the Great Plains in the 1890s.
A key role was played by USDA cereal scientist Mark Alfred
Carleton (1866-1925) who worked with Mennonites on the
Great Plains and visited the steppe in 1898-9 and 1900. He
introduced further varieties of hard, red, winter wheat and
hard, spring durum wheat.
By the1920s, a large part of the wheat on the Great Plains
was varieties from the steppe.
Conclusions
This research presents an example of Americans learning from Russian
and Ukrainian agricultural sciences, techniques and crops devised on the
steppe, which was settled and cultivated before the Great Plains.
After some resistance and a language barrier, a series of influences
moved from East to West.
This was possible because of a number of factors:
1. Migrants, e.g. Mennonite farmers and scientists such as Raphael Zon
2. Personal contacts, e.g. Carleton – Mennonites
3. Scientific literature, e.g. Glinka – Marbut
4. International meetings, e.g. Soil Science Congress, 1927
5. Role of personalities, e.g. Carleton, Marbut, Zon
Bibliography
David Moon, The Plough that Broke the Steppes: Agriculture and Environment
on Russia’s Grasslands, 1700-1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2013)
David Moon, ‘The Grasslands of North America and Russia’, in J.R.
McNeill and Erin Stewart Maudlin (eds), A Companion to Global
Environmental History (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012): 247-62
(Ukrainian translation [forthcoming], ‘СТЕПИ ПІВНІЧНОЇ АМЕРИКИ ТА
РОСІЇ’, Наукові праці історичного факультету Запорізького
національного університету, выпуск 42)
David Moon, ‘In the Russians’ Steppes: The Introduction of Russian
Wheat on the Great Plains of the United States of America’, Journal of
Global History, 3 (2008): 203-225
(Russian translation: ‘ИНТРОДУКЦИЯ РУССКОЙ ПШЕНИЦЫ НА
ВЕЛИКИХ РАВНИНАХ США', Американский ежегодник, 2011: 161-76)
David Moon, ‘The Environmental History of the Russian Steppes: Vasilii
Dokuchaev and the Harvest Failure of 1891', Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society, 6th ser., 15 (2005): 149-174
(Russian translation: ‘ЭКОЛОГИЧЕСКАЯ ИСТОРИЯ РОССИЙСКИХ
СТЕПЕЙ: ВАСИЛИЙ ДОКУЧАЕВ И НЕУРОЖАЙ 1891 г.’ Вопросы
истории естествознания и техники, 2009. № 3: 48–71)
Alexander Chibilev and Sergei Levykin, ‘Virgin Lands divided by an
Ocean: The Fate of Grasslands in the Northern Hemisphere’, translated
and annotated by David Moon, Nova Acta Leopoldina, Neue Folge, 114,
no.390 (2013), pp.91-103
The Main Influences
Mennonite farmers in Kansas (late nineteenth century)
Introduction
This poster presents influences from the Russian-Ukrainian steppe in
the transformation of the American Great Plains from grassland to
major agricultural region between the 1870s and 1940s.
Both regions share similar environments and environmental histories.
Both were grasslands, inhabited by mobile peoples who herded or
hunted animals. Both were settled by farmers of European origin who
ploughed up the very fertile soils. In good years, they reaped bumper
harvests. However, both suffered from unreliable rainfall and high winds.
In bad years, e.g. 1891-2 on the steppe and the 1930s on the Great
Plains, droughts were accompanied by dust storms, crop failures,
population exoduses, and, on the steppe, famines.
The steppe underwent the transformation to agricultural region several
decades before the Great Plains. Thus, Plains farmers and the US Dept
of Agriculture (USDA) were able to learn from Russian-Ukrainian
experience.
The Great Plains
The Eurasian Steppe, including the Russian and Ukrainian steppe
2. Genetic soil science that considers soils as the products of the
environment in which they formed (i.e. genetic from genesis).
Soil profile showing soil horizons:
A horizon = top soil
B horizon = transition layer
C horizon = parent rock
Dokuchaev showed that soils form as a result of the interaction of ‘soil forming
factors’, thus soils are a product of: eroded parent rock + rotted organic
matter (e.g. steppe grasses) + the climate + the relief of the land over time.
Understanding how soils form is important for working out ways to use soils
sustainably to maintain their fertility.
American soil scientists became acquainted with Russian genetic soil science from
English and German translations of works by Dokuchaev and his students, e.g.
Konstantin Glinka (1867-1927), and international meetings.
The key figure was Curtis F. Marbut (1863–1935), head of the US Soil Survey,
1911-35, who overcame institutional resistance and adapted Russian soil science for
use by the Soil Survey. From the 1930s, US government soil maps described the soils
of the Great Plains as chernozem, the Russian term.
Continental excursion after
1st International Congress
of Soil Science, Washington,
DC, 1927.
Marbut, 2nd from left;
Glinka, 3rd from left.
Photograph courtesy of
Missouri State Historical
Society.
4. Tumbleweed
Perhaps the most enduring influence is an icon of the
American West: the tumbleweed, aka Russian thistle,
Перекати-поле, kali tragus. It was imported by mistake
from the steppe to the Dakota territory by Mennonite
migrants in the 1870s, and then spread rapidly across the
Great Plains in spite of attempts to eradicate it.
Above: Tumbleweed in local museum in Kherson, southern
Ukraine
Below: Tumbleweed on the Great Plains
3. Shelterbelts of trees
Planting trees to shelter the land against the drying influence of the wind and
erosion was pioneered by Mennonite farmers on the steppe in the 1830s-40s.
Further research was carried out by colleagues of Dokuchaev in the 1890s-1900s.
In the 1930s, during the ‘Dust Bowl’, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt launched the Prairies States Forestry
Project to plant shelterbelts across the Great Plains to
reduce wind erosion. The project drew on prior
experience on the steppe.
The key person was Raphael Zon (1874-1956), an
American forester of Russian origin, who served as a
conduit for Russian forestry science to the USA.
Zon with map of Shelterbelt zone on Great Plains.
Shelterbelts at
Kamennaya step’ research
station, southern Russia,
founded by Dokuchaev in
1890s
Devised by Vasilii Dokuchaev
(1846-1903) on basis of
field work on chernozem
(black earth) of the steppe
Presented at the 8th biennial conference of ESEH (The European
Society for Environmental History) in Versailles, France, on 30 June – 3
July 2015, by
David Moon
Anniversary Professor in History
University of York, UK
Poster produced with assistance from Victoria Beale
The Amerikan Steppe/Американская степь: Influences on the Great Plains from Russia and Ukraine
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