| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.5

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 213 words from this article are provided below; about 614 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.5 | The History Cooperative

Steven Stoll. Larding the Lean Earth: Soil and Society in Nineteenth Century America. New York: Hill and Wang. 2002. Pp. xii, 287. $30.00.
Broken into three lengthy chapters, this innovative and far-reaching study by Steven Stoll weaves together important strands of American agricultural, environmental, and conservation history from the 1820s to the late nineteenth century. It offers a series of stimulating arguments, forcing the reader to reconsider traditional interpretations of topics ranging from early national political economy and antebellum agricultural reform to the origins of the modern conservation principles.	1
The book's first section provides an overview of the antebellum movement to promote restorative husbandry. In the wake of the War of 1812, the Panic of 1819, and increased western migration, many prominent Americans championed a more careful, deliberate effort to sustain crop yields on existing, long-settled eastern farms. Their prescriptive advice centered around the labor-intensive use of cattle manure as a means of enriching soil fertility. This practice was hardly new—it simply called for the application of a longstanding British farm method—but took on a new urgency in the United States in light of American concerns with its economic independence and, especially, the economic dislocations of the early 1820s and beyond.	. . .

There are about 614 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.