Virginia Vignettes » Agriculture

When Did a Fungus Bring Economic Devastation in Virginia?

EV — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:53:06 +0000

Nature has often shaped Virginia’s modern history; the Chestnut Blight of the early twentieth century offers one example. Prior to the blight, southern Virginian mountain communities gathered and sold chestnuts, included them in their diet, and used them as animal feed. They also used the trees, as environmental scholar Ralph Lutts has noted, “in log houses and other structures, furniture, interior trim, musical instruments, coffins, and cooperage, and also for shingles, mine timbers, railroad ties, telephone poles, and fence posts and rails.”

The chestnut blight may have been accidentally introduced to North America around 1900-1908, either through imported chestnut lumber or through imported chestnut trees. The discovery of the Chestnut blight fungus on some Asian Chestnut trees planted on Long Island, New York was made public in 1904. The fungus Cryphonectria parasitica spread within eastern forests, damaging the American Chestnut’s health, ultimately decimating more than 3.5 billion trees, removing important habitats for wildlife populations (for example, bear, squirrel, and turkey), and leading to economic disaster within the communities that relied on them.

For Further Reading:

Lutts, Ralph, H. “Like Manna from God: The American Chestnut Trade in Southwestern Virginia,” Environmental History 9 (2004): 497–525.

What is a Watershed and Does Virginia Have One?

VFHwebdev — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:00:04 +0000

Actually, Virginia has many watersheds. All the land that drains to a particular body of water is called a watershed. A river’s watershed is made up of smaller watersheds as creeks and streams filter into larger ones before finally flowing into a single river. Virginia has 13 major watersheds, with the most dominant being the Chesapeake Bay system (Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation). Within their drainage basins, the four major Virginia rivers defining the Chesapeake Bay watershed—the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James—provide habitats for native animals, trees, and assorted plant life, while supplying water for various human uses including drinking, irrigation, and transportation.

Watersheds have played a vital role in the development of Virginia, serving as transportation routes, means of communication between communities, and the determining factor in the location of towns, cities, and farms, and in some cases, battles.

Today, Virginia’s watersheds have often been the battleground when environmental, industrial, and agricultural issues have come into conflict. Dealing appropriately and decisively with theses issues is one of the major challenges facing 21st Century Virginians.

For Further Reading:

Curtin, Philip, Grace Brush, and George Fisher, eds. Discovering the Chesapeake: The History of an Ecosystem. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

Does Virginia Have a Geological Region?

VFHwebdev — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:25:42 +0000

Yes, five major ones. A geological region is a specific land area, each differentiated by rock strata and elevation. The environmental character of Virginia’s regions has led to differences in agricultural planning, energy resource availability, and workforce and industrial opportunities.

The sand, silt, and clay of the Tidewater region on the coast of Virginia and the southern Chesapeake Bay have historically offered a constrained range of agricultural opportunities while creating other economic ones such as shipping and fishing.

The Piedmont region, bordered on the east by the Tidewater area and on the west by the rising Blue Ridge Mountains, provided fertile conditions for the production of tobacco.

The Blue Ridge Mountains provided fishing and hunting grounds for various Native American groups, and today provides some of Virginia’s most beautiful scenery, enticing tourists and outdoor enthusiasts alike.

The Shenandoah Valley, an area sometimes referred to as the breadbasket of the state, is a rich agricultural zone in the northwestern part of the state.

The Appalachian Highlands, the mountainous area to the west, is a coal-rich, mountainous region of higher elevation, harsher soil content, and more distinct climatic seasons.

These five major geological regions combine to make the Commonwealth a land of outstanding biodiversity.

For Further Reading:

Hofstra, Warren. The Planting of New Virginia: Settlement and Landscape in the Shenandoah Valley. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.

Kirby, Jack Temple. “Virginia’s Environmental History: A Prospectus,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 99 (1991): 449–488.

Has Nature Shaped Virginia’s History?

VFHwebdev — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:00:57 +0000

Virginia’s modern history has been shaped by its nonhuman natural environment. The state’s climate, geology, waterways, fisheries, wildlife population, flora and fauna, and soil content have provided the conditions for economic, cultural, and recreational possibilities across the state.

A review of the state’s bioregions reveals subtle examples of nature acting to shape Virginia’s modern history. Watersheds determined hunting and trade routes for Virginia’s native people. Mountains acted as barriers to westward expansion until routes were found through them, resulting in the formation of settlements.

Bioregions, geological regions and watersheds are defined through physical and environmental features, including soil and terrain characteristics, and all have helped to shape Virginia as it exists today.

For Further Reading:

Kirby, Jack Temple. “Virginia’s Environmental History: A Prospectus,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 99 (1991): 449–488.

What part did indentured servants play in early Virginia?

VFHwebdev — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 12:00:28 +0000

Indentured servants comprised some three-quarters or more of those making the overseas migration to Virginia in the early 1600s. Upon arrival, servants would be sold to a master for whom they would work off the debt of “transportation,” as the crossing was termed. The immigrants came from a range of social classes and backgrounds; however, most were young men of little formal education. Women and children made the journey as well, some voluntarily with high hopes for America, while others were “lagged” or kidnapped off the streets. Along with the urban poor generally, debtors and convicts were shipped to the colonies, too. The cautionary tale of one James Revel tells the fate of an English youth transported to Virginia for larceny, “Forc’d from . . . friends and country to go,/ Among the Negroes to work at the hoe.” Indentured servants played a critical part in the early colonial economy, largely as field-hands on tobacco farms. They figured prominently, along with slaves, free laborers, and others, in Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676. As enslavement of Africans became more profitable and widespread, the role of indentured servants diversified, and the institution waned by late colonial times.

Further Reading

David Hackett Fischer and James C. Kelly, Bound Away

How bad was the Great Depression in Virginia?

VFHwebdev — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 15:16:26 +0000

Although Virginia’s balanced economy absorbed some of the shock of the crisis, the state was not “depression proof.” It was a time for rigid economizing on the farms. Many farmers stopped growing tobacco because it did not pay the fertilizer and marketing costs. Practically no agricultural machinery was purchased, and deterioration in buildings and equipment was widespread. Albemarle farmer Clarence Holt recalled, “Money for necessities was scarce–for luxuries, non-existent; work clothes bore many patches and did not always match.” In urban centers times were even more difficult. Soup kitchens and breadlines became common features on city streets. People did their own laundry, garaged the car, allowed automobile licenses to lapse, and did without vacations. Smokers turned to “roll your own” cigarettes. Studies of Richmond unemployed showed a high rate of illness, debt, and emotional problems among their families, many of whose members had turned to begging, excessive drinking, and criminal activity, even prostitution. Agricultural agent John Freeman recollected: “People were in a daze–shock actually. There was not much unrest, but had steps not been taken, the situation could have become chaotic.”

Further Reading

Ronald L. Heinemann, Depression and New Deal in Virginia

How successful was the Populist movement in Virginia?

VFHwebdev — Mon, 21 May 2007 12:19:40 +0000

Populism was a broad-based farmers’ movement that attempted to address the problems of low commodity prices and unfair competition experienced by farmers in the late nineteenth century. Through the Grange and then the Farmers’ Alliance they created cooperatives and sought railroad rate regulation to reduce their costs and eliminate monopolistic practices. Failing to achieve these goals, many Virginia farmers rushed to join the national People’s Party or Populists, who were demanding more forceful federal action to deal with farm problems that included new election laws, state and national income and corporation taxes, and the coinage of more silver. Faced with the liability of being a third party and Democratic charges that they were “cranks” and “radicals” whose victory would restore “Black Reconstruction”, Virginia Populists won only a small percentage of the presidential vote in 1892 and suffered a devastating defeat in the 1893 governor’s race. Strongest in the tobacco counties, Populism had a modest impact in the Old Dominion, where crop diversity and better farm conditions minimized its appeal.

Further Reading

G. Terry Sharrer, A Kind of Fate: Agricultural Change in Virginia, 1861-1920

What did the freed slaves do after the Civil War?

VFHwebdev — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 12:46:49 +0000

Leaving their old plantations, the emancipated slaves went in search of families and jobs, experiencing the emotional release of being free. They legalized their marriages, seized control of their churches, and avidly pursued education through missionary and Freedmen’s Bureau schools. Despite white charges of idleness, freedpeople sought any kind of employment, many going to towns and cities for higher-paying jobs, army protection, and the assistance of Freedmen’s Bureau agents and free blacks. They used skills learned on the plantation to become independent blacksmiths, shoemakers, and draymen and continued to be employed in tobacco factories and flour mills. But most former slaves, without land or resources, became hired agricultural laborers. Accepting wage labor, they negotiated agreements that granted them more control over their lives–time off, an end to the gang system of labor, removal of family labor from the fields, and the right to keep garden crops. By the end of the 1860s, freedpeople had made remarkable progress, independently working the land, casting ballots, sitting in legislative seats, freely moving about, their children going to school.

Further Reading

Robert Francis Engs, Freedom’s First Generation: Black Hampton, Virginia, 1861-1890; Lynda J. Morgan, Emancipation in Virginia’s Tobacco Belt, 1850-1870.