| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord. By Brian Donahue. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. xxii, 311 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-300-09751-4.)
New England's colonial farmers have not fared well at the hands of historians. According to the usual narrative, cheap land and expensive labor encouraged settlers to adopt wasteful practices. Failing to rotate crops or fertilize arable fields, farmers exhausted the soil on which their livelihoods depended. Their descendants, faced with declining yields, moved to new territory and replicated a vicious cycle of unsustainable agriculture. In The Great Meadow, Brian Donahue challenges this view, offering a compelling argument for the ecological viability of early New England farming.	1
To make this case, Donahue draws on his professional training as an environmental historian and his practical experience as a farmer. He is equally adept at analyzing land deeds and at explaining why apple orchards grow better on rocky slopes than on sandy soils. His conclusions derive from the correlation of historical land use patterns with Geographical Information Systems maps showing the geological and hydrological constraints within which farmers had to work in Concord, Massachusetts. Donahue succeeds admirably at explaining "how colonial husbandry actually worked" (p. 22) and in the process redeems the reputation of New England farmers.	. . .

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