This book attempts to measure the growth of physical farm capital in five major categories from 1870 to 2005, and that of all financial assets used in farming after 1900; to relate this growth of capital to that of the farm labor force and to output; and to discover the principal determinants of investment in the various types of agricultural capital and the sources of financing that made the investments possible. Where possible that data were developed and analyzed by type-of-farming regions. Such treatment not only permitted a closer identification of capital formation with historical and geographical influences in general, but it revealed also the particular influence of the type of faming that was dominant in each region. Here, to be sure, the picture may be somewhat blurred by reason of the lack of complete homogeneity of farm operations even in regions differentiated according to type of faming. But there was no really satisfactory alternative.
There are no reviews yet.