Antebellum Michigan Farmers and Their Soils: Choices had Consequences (Report‪)‬

ABSTRACT Antebellum Michigan and the other four states in the Old Northwest attracted farmer-settlers in search of improved economic opportunities. Economic success in farming was helped by cultivating productive soils. Farmers in the pre-soil science era depended on rules-of-thumb and public pronouncements in selecting an area's best soils. The present article describes claims about the supply of soils in Michigan and its individual counties. This is followed by an economic assessment of farmers cultivating differently productive soils as classified by a recent soil survey in mid-Michigan's antebellum Midland County. The assessment combines multiple data sets that link individual farms to their soils and to each farm's performance in 1859, according to the agricultural census of 1860. The methodological contribution of the analysis demonstrates the feasibility of making linkages using land patents, deeds, soil maps, and census enumerator sheets for the 1860 population and agricultural censuses. The concluding discussion section in this article links the article's findings to assumed but untested hypotheses about the influence soils had on antebellum migration patterns. Both the methodological and substantive contributions of the article are based on a limited number of antebellum farmers in a single county.