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Historical Perspectives on Frontier Agriculture as an Adaptive Strategy

Author(s): Maxine MargolisSource: American Ethnologist, Vol. 4, No. 1, Human Ecology (Feb., 1977), pp. 42-64Published by: Wileyon behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/643522.

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historicalperspectives n frontieragricultureas anadaptive trategy1MAXINE MARGOLIS-University of Florida

The love of the soil that one may see in China or France, the desire to honor it, to keep it inpossession no matter how small the plot may be, is a thing born of familiarity and tradition,what we might call a part of the folk spirit in a long settled agricultural community. It is quitedifferent from the restless response to the invitation of the land in a pioneer region.-Isaiah BowmanThe Pioneer Fringeintroduction

In recent years, many seemingly inexplicable cultural practices have been renderedintelligible by ecological interpretations which have explored the adaptive advantagesthese traits confer on the populations which practice them. An ecological approach hasproven useful not only in understanding the nature of economic and social activities, butalso in demonstrating the adaptive aspects of religious beliefs and ceremonial behavior,domains often still categorized exclusively within the ideological realm (see, for example,Harris 1966; Rappaport 1968; and Moore 1969). Still, ecologically oriented anthro-pologists have tended to focus on economic behavior, the way people make their living,since it is here that the link between a human population and its environment is mostapparent.The subsistence activities of relatively small, homogeneous populations devoted toforaging, pastoralism, or horticulture have received the most attention within theeconomic sphere. Two factors may account for this preoccupation with primitivesocieties. First, they are the traditional subjects of anthropological inquiry. Moreimportantly, however, the relative simplicity of their adaptations makes it far easier forthe investigator to disentangle the complex environmental and cultural variables affectingthem. Ecological studies of more complex societies, while they exist, are few in number(see, for example, Bennett 1969). For the same reasons, ecological anthropologistsconcerned with agriculture have dealt largely with populations practicing slash-and-burntechniques and again, with few exceptions (Boserup 1965; Geertz 1968; Hanks 1972),have not analyzed the cultural and environmental factors involved in more complex

Thispaper examines the ecological and economic factors which result inresource depletion on one type of agricultural frontier: those devoted tocash crops. It argues that the adaptive strategies of frontier cultivatorsare analogous to the fugitive strategies characteristic of some non-human species. These strategies account for the exploitative nature offrontier agriculture which leads to partial resource depletion or long-term ecological destruction.

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systems of cultivation, particularly those that are tied to world market demands.This paper will examine the economic and ecologic variables affecting one system ofcomplex agriculture often associated with frontier zones: the cultivation of cash crops forwhich there is a high market value. It will be argued that a number of interrelatedeconomic and environmental factors are associated with a particular variety ofexploitation in which (1) the goal is quantitative not qualitative production, (2) the landis used extensively rather than intensively, and (3) the abundance of land, along with ascarcity of labor and capital, puts the burden of greater production on the soil. It will befurther argued that frontier agriculturalists, living under the conditions described below,behave similarly because they individually adapt to the same set of ecological andeconomic constraints. It will be shown that it is the circumstances in which frontier cashcrop cultivators find themselves which account for their reluctance to invest in expensiveagricultural methods, including their failure to employ soil conservation measures. Notunexpectedly, the combined effect of these exploitative agricultural practices is fargreater than the damage wrought by individual cultivators, and they lead to either partialresource depletion or long-term environmental degradation.Mentalistic explanations for the exploitative character of cultivation in frontier zoneswill be disputed. Opportunistic get-rich-quick attitudes held by frontier cultivators aresometimes cited as explanations for the destructive quality of agricultural regimes infrontier regions (see, for example, Bowman 1931; Allen 1959). According to this view, afootloose lifestyle, an absence of deep-rooted ties to the land, and a lack of concern forit, make frontier cultivators indifferent to the long-term consequences of their behavior.It follows, then, that these values are regarded as ultimately responsible for environmentaldegradation because they take precedence over considerations of resource conservation.An alternative explanation for this behavior, one which looks to the materialconditions which affect many frontiers devoted to cash crop agriculture, will be utilizedin this paper. It will be argued that the frontier cultivators' exploitative stance vis-a-visnatural resources can be best explained as an adaptive response to a particular set ofeconomic and ecological conditions which often prevail in frontier regions. This approachis superior to one which cites frontier values as the prime movers for such behavior inthat it does not merely describe these values, but explains their appearance within certainfrontier contexts. In addition, if this analysis is correct, we can predict that a similarseries of values will arise where certain preconditions are met.The variables affecting the nature of frontier agriculture will be separated into two sets(economic and ecological) for heuristic purposes only, realizing that they are interrelatedand often interdependent. The economic factors include (1) the demand for a valuablecash crop, (2) the presence of free or inexpensive virgin frontier land, (3) unstable marketconditions affecting the price received for the crop, (4) the accessibility of markets, and(5) the availability of credit. The ecological factors involved are (1) the effects on thequality of the soil of clearing virgin land for cultivation and (2) the influence of unstableand unpredictable natural conditions-that is, those related to weather and the presenceof insect pests.The etic conditions outlined above produce adaptive strategies among frontiercultivators that are analogous to the fugitive strategies characteristic of certainnonhuman species.2 Fugitive species are able to survive by rapid and temporaryoccupations of new ecological niches as they first become available (MacArthur andWilson 1967:82).3 It is suggested that a similar gambit is followed by frontier cultivatorson land newly opened up for cash cropping. A word of extreme caution should be addedhere: in using this analogy between the strategies of nonhuman species and human

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populations it is with the full realization that the actual mechanisms of their respectiveadaptations are vastly different. Without belaboring this obvious point, in frontierenvironments cash crop cultivators, as individuals, draw upon a large repertoire of learnedbehaviors, many of which are used in adapting to changing circumstances. Moreover, theirsuccess in adapting to frontier conditions is a measure of their cultural, not, as in the casewith fugitive species, of their biological success.In order to analyze the adaptations of frontier cash crop agriculturalists and thefactors which produce them, their strategies in two world areas will be described indepth: the cotton frontier in the southern and southwestern United States and the coffeefrontier in southern Brazil. In addition, the strategies of cash crop cultivators in otherfrontier regions will be briefly described.consequences of frontier cash crop agriculture

Historians probably were the first to note the destructive effects of frontier agricultureon natural resources and to decry the social consequences of worn-out, abandoned lands.Many historical accounts of southern and westward expansion in the United Statesvividly portray the conquest of the wilderness by farmers who made no compromisewith nature ... which they came to subdue, not preserve (Billington 1966:41). Thisfrontier spirit, in turn, led to the ruthless exploitation of nature's resources (Allen1959:111).The literature on the settlement of the North American continent abounds withdescriptions of prodigal cultivation techniques, the lack of conservation measures, and thedeleterious consequences of these practices on the land. Some historians argue, in fact,that the pace of frontier expansion was accelerated in the American south and southeastby the rapidity with which tobacco and, later, cotton exhausted the soil (Allen 1959:34).One of the best-documented examples of the exploitative nature of cash cropcultivation on frontiers is the swift advance of cotton culture in the American Southduring the nineteenth century. Many contemporary observers lamented the cottonplanters' and farmers' seeming indifference to the future of their lands; they decried thecultivators' overwhelming desire for quick profits which led to their constant search forfresher, more fertile soil in which to plant their crops. These commentators equallylambasted the conditions that this movement left in its wake: the abandoned farms anddesolate towns, the decaying mansions, the lifeless gullied countryside covered withbroom sedge and foxtail, and the social and political consequences of mass migrationfrom exhausted lands that could support no one (Eaton 1949, 1961; Weaver 1945).There is little doubt that most methods of cotton cultivation in the south weredestructive of the land. The slopes were plowed and planted with cotton year after yearwithout using clover or peas to plow under and restore the soil's humus. Humus also wasdestroyed by the practice of clean planting in rows, which reduced the capacity of thesoil to absorb moisture. Drainage channels became clogged so that heavy spring andsummer rains ran down the slopes carrying off the topsoil with them'. Although sheeterosion was not evident at first, gullies began to appear and then deepen, eventuallymaking cultivation impossible and the abandonment of the land unavoidable (Gates1960:139).There were pleas for crop rotation and diversification, for using improved seed, formanuring depleted lands, for building drainage ditches, and for deep plowing (Weaver1945:88). A few of these were heeded, but most fell on deaf ears. Many cultivatorsreadily adopted better cotton seed which increased production, and the plow was used




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more widely for cotton than for staple crops. But, as for soil conservation and cropdiversification, little or nothing was done. The same exploitative practices first used in thePiedmont region were carried to Alabama and Mississippi and points west; planters andfarmers alike tilled the soil without apparent concern for its future.A similar tale can be told for the advance of coffee cultivation in southern Brazil. Inless than one hundred and fifty years, coffee spread from the hilly flanks around the cityof Rio de Janeiro to the Paraiba Valley, onward to MinasGerais and Sao Paulo and, mostrecently, to Parana,finally crossing the international boundary into Paraguay. Here again,critics of the advance abound; while historians have described the rapid westward marchof the crop, agronomists have criticized the degradation of natural resources it left in itswake. Improvidence was said to have rode along with the coffee frontier (Little1960:260); an exploitative psychology was held responsible for the move to fertilefrontier lands once the old lands were depleted (Moore 1962:465), and a spirit ofroutinism (rotina) was blamed for the planters' failure to adopt modern agriculturalmethods (Stein 1957:48).

Again, there is a great deal of evidence that the techniques used in cultivation led tothe rapid deterioration of the soil. In the Paraiba Valley, coffee was planted in verticalrows up and down the slopes, and hard tropical rains washed away the soil, leaving thetrees' roots exposed to the elements (Stein 1957:34). There were few attempts toconserve the soil's initial fertility; rational agricultural methods-mechanization, seedand seedling selection, fertilizer, reforestation, and erosion control-were utilizedinfrequently, and then, in most cases, as stopgap measures only after yields had begun todecline.

The aftermath of falling coffee production and depleted soils in Brazil was not unlikeits counterpart in the southern United States. In some areas, the abandoned coffee landswere so devastated that it is unlikely that they can be restored for crop production. Thedestruction of humus was on a massive scale: In most regions, a mere one tenth nowremains of the amount of humus present when coffee cultivation wasstarted.... Centuries of forest growth would be required to restore an adequate humuslayer (Borgstrom 1967:329-330). In many regions, cattle ranching replaced coffeecultivation; large-scale unemployment resulted, followed by partial depopulation(Margolis 1973:218-219). Cattle graze on pasturage that is deficient both in quality andquantity and must be ever on their guard to avoid injuring themselves in the gullies andravines which are barely concealed by the sparse vegetation (Borgstrom 1967:330).Today, in many former coffee counties, abandoned schools and houses, unused dryingterraces, and vast expanses of pasture punctuated by lifeless coffee trees bear mutewitness to the injurious results of cash crop frontier agriculture.

the destructive cycle: economic considerationsIn order to account for the rather striking parallels in the course of cash cropcultivation in frontier regions, we now turn to the economic and ecological contexts withwhich this type of cultivation is most often associated. The sine qua non of theexploitative agricultural regimes described above is a combination of free or inexpensive

virgin frontier land and a high market demand for a cash crop. For a variety of reasonswhich cannot be dealt with here, subsistence farming does not seem to produce the sameopportunistic patterns.4Typically, once a demand is established for a cash crop, there is a rapid, large-scalemigration to frontier areas more or less suited to its cultivation. The land is possessed




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either throughsquattingor throughpaymentof a nominalprice. Forestsarequicklycutdown, the land is cleared for planting, rudimentaryshelters are constructed, andseeminglyovernighta vast wildernesshas given way to cultivated ields dotted with signsof humanhabitation.The prices received for the cash crop are relativelyhigh, certainly higher than foralternativecrops, so that the cultivators'goal is to produceas much as possibleon theland available to them. For this reason, the production of subsistencecrops may beinsufficient to meet the needs of the local population, since, with a relativelysparsepopulation, labor is too valuable to waste on growingsuch mundanestaplesas rice,corn, or beans. Harvestsare very largeat first, as they can be on newly cultivatedsoils;and profits, at least initially, are high.This phaseoften is markedby an auraof generalprosperity with a boom town atmosphere. Comparativelylavish consumption iscommon; food and clothing are imported; and, in the contemporaryera, there arepurchasesof radios,sewingmachines,andeven carsandjeeps.Duringtheir early settlement, the cotton and coffee zones of the United States andBrazil conformed closely to the scenariooutlinedabove. In the former,the passageof theHarrisonFrontier Land Act of 1800, setting the minimumprice of government and at$2.00 an acre and allowing payments in four annual installments, encouraged theexpansionof cotton in the Gulf states (Eaton 1961:31). Rich alluviallands in the lowerMississippiregionsold for $2-4 an acre (Cohn 1956:105). Between 1830 and 1840, thetide of humanity comingfrom the oldercotton states to the Gulf states in searchof freshfrontier land swelled the populationsof Alabamaand Mississippiby 76 percentand 154percent, respectively (Eaton 1961:44). Within hirty years,the greatforestshadvanishedand had been replacedby cultivatedfields, plantations,and roads.The rudelogcabin ofthe first yearsgave way to the southern mansionhouse, with its sweepingverandaandimposingcolumns.Both harvestsand profits were initiallylarge,despitefluctuationsin the pricereceivedfor cotton. For example, in Louisiana ollowing the War of 1812, the combinationofhigh prices and high yields on newly clearedland enabledplanters o earn$500 to $600annuallyper workerby cultivatingcotton (Gray1933:899). Planters owed most of theirholdings in cotton, forcing themselvesto buy staples in the market,and in 1825, whenthere was a sudden upsurgein the price of cotton, corn actuallywas plowed under tomake way for the more valuablecashcrop.The Mississippi iverboat trade thrivedduringthis period, carryingall mannerof goods to the plantersof the region;these were trulyFlush Times in Alabama and Mississippi, s a book written duringthe era was called(cited in Eaton1961:35).The story of the settlementof Brazil'snewestcoffee frontier,northernParana,ollowsa verysimilarpattern.Withina periodof forty-fiveyears (1920-1965), populationdensityin the coffee-producing egionsof the state increased romjust under nine to slightlyoverseventy-five people per square mile, and a fourfold population increasein ten yearsoccurred in some parts of the zone (Nicholls 1969:40, 48). Between 1940 and 1950alone, it is estimated that some two million people migrated o the Paranarontierfrommanyof the olderagricultural reas n Brazil(Courtenay1965:82).The dense semi-tropical orests rapidly gave way to row upon row of coffee trees, aspeople with fairly meagerresourcesflocked to the region hoping to strike-it-richwithgreen gold, as coffee was called. Land was cheap and could be purchased ininstallmentsat low interestrates,5 so that manysettlerswereable to affordat leastsmallfrontier plots. Those with fewer resources came to the region in hopes of beingcontracted as formadoresde cafe, that is, cultivatorswho clearedthe land, plantedand

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cared for the coffee trees for up to six years in returnfor the rights to the first andsecond harvests(Margolis1973:35). Still others were attracted to northernParanaby therelativelyhigh wagesthey could earn as laborers n the coffee harvest.The coffee boom in northernParanareached a peak duringthe decade of the 1950s,when the newly plantedcoffee treesbeganproducing heirfirst harvestsandpricessoaredto a high of $15 per bag of unprocessedcoffee (Margolis1972:10). These werethe daysof milk and honey for much of the local population;stores were well stocked withluxury goods, the towns bustled with activity, and shiny new Volkswagens raveledtherecentlybuilt dirt roadsthatcrisscrossed he countryside.Booms of this sort in frontier regions generallydo not last. After a few years,yieldsbegin to decline. The exact numberof years depends upon the initialfertility of the soil,the demands which particularcrops make on it, and other factors. During the earlyyears of cultivation,which were markedby bountiful harvestsand good profits, little orno attention was paidto maintaining he soil's original ertility. Laborwas too scarceandcostly to carry out conservationmeasures.By the time that crop yields havedecreaseddue to soil depletion, the price received for the crop may be lower as the result ofoverproduction,and profitsaredown considerably.Conservationmeasures, herefore,arenot economically feasible even if planters want to undertake them. A centralconsiderationhere,however,is that cultivatorsarehighlyreluctantto investlargesums ofmoney in efforts to improvetheir partially depleted holdingswhencheapfertile frontierland is still available. The reserve of seemingly inexhaustiblevirgin land makes thelandowners'unwillingnessto spend their resourceson rational agriculturalmethodsunderstandable;or considerably ess they can purchase rontierplots which arevirtuallyguaranteed o produce highyieldsfor at least a few years.These events occurred in both frontier zones under consideration. In the southernUnited States during the nineteenth century, there was almost a constant south andwestwardmovementof farmersand plantersfrom the older cotton-producing egionstothe virginfrontier lands beingopened up for cultivation. But why this migration? n theearly cotton-producingareasof Virginiaand North Carolina,productionfell drastically;the combined crop from the two states was 104,000 bales in 1828-1829, but fourteenyears later it had fallen to 22,500 bales(Gray1933:889). Soil depletion, earlyfrostsandlower cotton prices were all held responsible for this precipitous decline (Phillips1929:99-100). But still there was no call for soil conservation.Thomas Jeffersonheldthat fertilizerswere not needed in Virginia becausewe can buy an acre of new landcheaperthanwe can manurean old one (quoted in Cohn 1956:49).Manycultivatorsfrom the older cotton regionsrushedto Alabamaand Mississippinhopes of recapturing he profits that can be made when a valuablecashcrop is growninvirginsoil. But here, too, the story wasrepeated.Therewasa relativelyshort-livedperiodof high yields and generalprosperity,but by 1840, in one typical Alabamacounty, theaverageyield of cotton seed had decreased rom 1,000 to 500 pounds(Davis 1939:170).By this time, however,it was not feasible to establishagriculturalpracticeswhichmighthave replenished he soil: generallyspeaking,soil conservationwasa luxuryfar beyondthe planters'means (Davis 1939:173).The peak of the coffee boom in the ParaibaValley of Rio de Janeirowas the decade1850-1860, but productionfell sharplythereafter;where 1,000 coffee trees hadyieldedup to 4,500 kilos of coffee, thirty years later they produced only 750 kilos (Stein1957:219). In the 1890s, many plantersfrom the Valley sold their depleted holdings6and migrated to the coffee frontier in Sao Paulo state. Their desire to move there isperfectly understandable n light of the fact that the newly cultivatedlands on the Sao

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Paulofrontier produced yields four to five timesgreater hanthose of the sappedsoils ofthe ParalbaValley (Gifun 1972:8). Whileconservationtechniquescertainlywere knownto anddiscussedby the plantersof the Valley, it is important o note that the purchaseoffrontier land was more reliable and less costly than investments n soil conservationandrestoration.Anothervery importanteconomic variableaffecting the natureof frontieragricultureis the price receivedfor the crop, since it, in conjunctionwith the size of yields, in partdetermines the cultivators' profit level. One problem common to frontier cash cropagriculturalistss that they are buffeted by forces of the world market over which theyhave no control. The prices paid for commodities on the world marketrise andfall, and,as we shall see, the behaviorof frontiercultivators s greatlyinfluencedby the conditionsof uncertaintycreatedby this situation.The prices receivedby North Americanplanters or their cotton crop is a good case inpoint, since they were determined by the international, largely British, commoditymarket (Allen 1959:40). Between 1801 and 1807, the price per pound of cotton fellfrom forty-four to twenty cents due to overproduction,a resultof the rapidrushto plantthat crop spurredby its initialhighreturn.Cotton pricescontinued theirdeclinethrough1814, but by 1815 the markethadrecovered,andcotton broughtthirtycents per pound.Overproduction ed to periodicdeclines in price-in 1820, 1825, and 1837-1845-greatlyaffectingthe cultivator's evelof return(Phillips1929:99-100).Similarly,the careerof coffee in Brazilhasbeen markedby greatfluctuationsin price.At the onset of the Great Depression, or example,pricesplummeted rom 22.5 cents toeight cents per pound within two years (Little 1960:159). Prices remained so lowthroughoutthe decadeof the 1930s that Brazilianplantersdid not havesufficientmoneyto carryout basicpruningtasks on their coffee trees (Little 1960:184). FollowingWorldWarII, prices rose sharply,eventually peakingat eighty-eightcents per pound in 1953(Schurz 1961:254). The mid-1950s were banneryears in terms of the planters'actualreturns on their crop; during this period, they receivedan averageof $15 per bag ofunprocessedcoffee.7 In the 1960s, world pricesfor coffee droppedagain,and planterswere now requiredto sell throughthe BrazilianCoffee Institute(Instituto BrasileirodeCafe), a federalagency. By 1967, planterswere beingpaid an averageof only $5.00 perbagof unprocessedcoffee (Margolis 973:47).The price received for cash crops also plays a majorrole in the decision to move tofrontier lands. The North American historian, Ray Billington, has shown a directcorrelation between land sales in the south and west and commodity prices in Englandand Europe. For example, between 1815-1820, when pricesfor cotton were high, therewas a rapidsouthwestwardexpansionof the crop, but in 1820 the pricefell, and so didthe demand for southern land (Billington 1966:29).8 Likewise,in Brazilthe westwardmovementof coffee was slowed considerablyduringthe depressionof the 1930s, but itpicked up enormousmomentumfollowing WorldWarii, when coffee pricesonce againsoared(Margolis 973:22).Two types of behavior which are potentially destructive of natural resources arestimulated during periods of high prices. When prices are high, the primarygoal offrontiercash crop cultivatorsis to producemore; to take their profits through quantityrather than quality; and to increase yields, not through more intensive methods ofcultivation,which would requiregreatercapital inputs, but through expansioninto evennewer frontier zones where land is both fertile and cheap. In Phillips'words, whencotton was high they [planters] felt the tug of richerprofits to be gainedfrom fresherlands (1929:99).

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It is an irony of frontier cash crop agriculture hat when capital is available or themaintenanceof soil quality; that is, duringperiodsof high prices, little attention is paidto it since yields are abundantowing to the initial fertility of newly cultivatedlands.However, by the time that soil fertility has declined, prices are often lower due tooverproduction,and little capital is available o invest in soil conservation.The result isthat capital is usually not used intensivelyon frontiersdevoted to cashcrop cultivation.Another side effect of high prices has been noted by the agricultural conomist,Ciriacy-Wantrup:ultivation expands into areas which, undermore conservativepriceexpectations, would not be suited climatically or geographically.Such speculativeexpansionhasfrequentlyled to soil depletion (1963:120). This occurredduring imesofhigh prices in both the United States and Brazil. In the former,cotton was planted inhilly, topographicallyunsuited areas of the Piedmont,as well as in the sandy loams ofwest and central Florida (Phillips 1929:273). In the latter, coffee spreadinto areasofpoor sandy soil, once all available erraroxa-a deep redporoussoil particularly uited tocoffee planting-was under cultivation. In Paranastate, coffee was planted in regionssubjectto periodic rosts with frequentlydisastrous onsequences.9During periods of low prices, there is sometimes a tendency among cultivatorstomaintainproductionor even increase it throughgreaterlabor inputs.This is particularlythe case among low income, self-employedfarmers;unableto afford hiredhands,familylabor may be increased during times of low prices. Such conditions also prevent thepurchaseof fertilizer, and the intensified use of the soil leads to furtherdepletion. Avicious cycle-low prices, low income, and soil depletion-is created (Ciriacy-Wantrup1963:208).The effects of these events on resourcedepletion are magnifiedif, duringperiodsofhigh prices, cultivation has expanded into regions which are topographically orclimaticallyunsuited to the particular ash crop in question.As noted above,it is duringtimes of low prices that there is a slowingof the movement nto newerfrontierzones. Itwill not be halted completely, however, if the cash crop, despite its relativelylow price,still affordsgreaterreturns hanalternative rops.'0Even greater contributors to resource depletion in frontier zones than speculativeexpansion of cash crops during times of high prices are conditions of uncertainty inmarket price. There is a greater reluctance on the part of cultivators to invest inconservationtechniques duringperiodsof price fluctuation. Evenexpendituresof costssunk for shorter periods-e.g., fertilizer-will be reduced if there is an increase inuncertainty (Ciriacy-Wantrup963:118-119). Thus,economic instabilitywhichleadstoprice fluctuations has a major influence on conservation decisions. This tendencyprobablyis enhanced in frontier situations characterizedby cheap abundant land. Sinceuncertaintyin marketprice marked the careersof cotton in the UnitedStatesandcoffeein Brazil,it is understandable hat their cultivatorswereunwilling o investheavilyin soilconservation,not to mention the moreexpensiveandslow processof landrestoration.The accessibilityof markets is anothermajorvariableaffecting the natureof frontieragriculture.Clearly, rontiercultivatorsmust havereadyaccess to marketswherethey cansell their crops. In fact, the location of frontier land in relationto roads,railroads,andports is an importantdeterminantof its value in export-propelledconomies as distinctfromsubsistenceeconomies (Katzman1975:269).The importance of the initial presence of market access should not be overstated,however,because,even if transportation acilitiesarepooror entirelylackingat first, thedemand for a valuable cash crop, along with the availabilityof good landon which togrow it, usually stimulates the construction of marketingfacilities necessaryfor the

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staple's commercialization.This certainly was true in the two frontier areas underdiscussion. Withinten years of the appearanceof short staple cotton as a commercialcrop, steamboatswere plying the MississippiRiverbringingcotton to the two principalsouthern ports of New Orleans and Mobile for shipment via New York to Britishfactories. Although the major period of railroadbuilding in the South did not getunderwayuntil the decadeof the 1850s, the railroadswere primarilydesignedto carrystaples-particularlycotton-to the seaportsof the region (Eaton 1961:199, 207, 210).Only one area of the Cotton Kingdomwas adverselyaffected by inadequatetransporta-tion facilities; the Georgia-SouthCarolinaPiedmontwas cut off from the coast by pinebarrensand lackednavigable ivers,but its inferiorsoil probablywas moreresponsible orcotton's early demise in the area than was its geographicalsituation (Abernethy1922:99).In the early period of coffee cultivation in Brazil, before the construction of therailroad,the crop was transportedby mule pack to the port of Rio de Janeiro(Stein1957:81). This costly and hazardousform of transportwas replaced by the PedroSegundorailroad,which reachedthe Para(baValley in the early 1860s. Coffeeplanters nSao Paulo state had no such marketingproblems;railroadswereverynearlycoterminouswith the coffee frontier:

The railroad erminus or three or fouryearsat a time wouldbe an importanturbancenteroraboca de sertdo(mouthof the backlands).Whena population arther n the interiorhadenoughfreightandpassengerrafficto meritservice, he railroadollowed (Little1960:21).Similarly, in northernParana he railroads xtended to the edge of frontiersettlement,and today, in addition to the railroads,well-maintainedpavedhighwayspermit the easytransportof the crop to the portsof Santosand ParanaquaMargolis 973:19-21).The final economic factor to be consideredhere which affects the nature of frontieragriculture s the availabilityof credit. A characteristicof many frontierzones is theirindebtedness Allen 1959:40). Farmersand plantersalike often lack sufficientcapitalto set up shop. The expenses of the early yearsof frontier settlementareparticularlyheavy; living quartersmust be built, tools purchased, andclearedand paid for, to saynothing of the money requiredto meet the cultivators'and their families'subsistenceneeds until the first crop has been harvested.' In short, frontierfarming s not possiblewith little or no capital, Frederick Jackson Turner (1920) notwithstanding. Mostcultivators,even relativelywealthy ones, need some sourceof credit.Credit is usually not difficult to come by in a frontierzone devotedto the cultivationof a valuablecash crop. When prices for the commodity are high and yields are large,creditors presumablyhave confidence in the cultivators'ability to repay their loans-atleast for a while. Not unexpectedly, then, credit was abundantlyavailableat most timeson the two frontiers n question.The availabilityof credit is not only necessary or the establishmentof commercialagriculturein frontier regions, but it also affects the frontier cultivator'sbehaviorinregardto soil conservation. In the long run, therefore, it may have an influence onresourceusageand depletion.1 If loans are needed to meet initialexpensesof all types,they also will be required or the purchaseof fertilizer, nsecticide,select seeds,andlaborto carryout erosioncontrol measures.There are two links between the use of creditandconservationdecisions:uncertaintyin the price received for the crop and uncertainty in natural conditions. Frontiercultivators are reluctant to invest in conservationmeasuresand to borrow money forthem at what often are high interest rates, if there is doubt as to the price they willreceive for the crop. If the principaland interestof their conservation oans must be




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paid off during,a period of sharply declining prices, their profits may be cut severely orwiped out completely. For similar reasons, frontier cash crop cultivators are loath topurchase fertilizer or to invest in erosion control, if there is the likelihood of a frost ordrought which would drastically cut the size of the anticipated harvest, if not entirelyeliminate it. And here again the spectre of unsettled virgin frontier land looms large: Whygo into debt to finance conservation measures on one's own partially depleted holding,when inexpensive frontier land-which virtually is guaranteed to produce for at least afew years-is readily available?In cases of sudden price plunges or the immediate threat of natural disasters,conservation decisions may be affected by the cultivators' fear of losing their land:

Farmers... who own their own land, but who are obligated to pay high interest andamortization charges may fear they will be dispossessed by their creditors in times of droughtor economic depression; they have no more interest in soil conservation than a tenant with ashort lease (Ciriacy-Wantrup1963:145).Credit was the life line of cotton culture in the southern United States, with thecotton factor playing the central role in its distribution. Cotton factors usually lived in

port cities and acted as the planters' agents, selling their crops, providing them with creditto buy land, slaves, and staples, and sending supplies to their plantations. The smallcountry general store served a similar function for farmers with small holdings. Thesestores operated almost entirely on credit. Thus, cultivators on a large scale or small wereheavily dependent on loans to meet their expenses, since they usually lacked cash untiltheir crops were sold. For their services, the creditors naturally demanded a price. Cottonfactors generally charged interest rates of only 8 percent, but they frequently requiredindebted planters to sell their crops exclusively to them. Small shopkeepers, too, werecompensated for their loans; they marked up goods as much as 100 percent, at leastpartially because of the exigencies of agriculture on which the repayment of their loansdepended (Eaton 1961:200-206).It appears that cotton planters did not borrow money for conservation purposes, butonly negative evidence attests to this. In a detailed study of the factorage system in thesouthern cotton region, there is no mention of loans to buy fertilizer or to finance otherconservation measures (Woodman 1968). While cultivators went heavily into debt topurchase more land and more slaves, particularly during periods of high prices, they didnot borrow money to improve or conserve land already under cultivation. Nor was cashon hand used for this purpose: surplus cash not needed for the payment of debts wasinvested in new land instead of being used for the improvement of the old (Davis1939:177).Credit also played a vital role in the advance of the coffee frontier in Brazil. From thefirst establishment of coffee plantations in the Parafba Valley, planters borrowed moneyto buy land, slaves, and the few necessities of life, such as salt, not available locally (Stein1957:17). But, once again, despite sharply declining yields in later years due to soilexhaustion and the increasing threat to the coffee trees from soil erosion, money was notborrowed to finance conservation schemes.

This has changed, however, but only very recently, on Brazil's newest coffee frontier.In northern Parana, just as in other cash crop frontier zones, cultivators borrowed heavilyfor everything from the purchase of food and household goods to the hiring of extrahands for the harvest. It is only within the last five years, however, that they have takenout loans to buy fertilizer and insecticide and to finance contour planting for erosioncontrol (Margolis 1973:245). Like their counterparts elsewhere, coffee cultivators innorthern Parana have been reluctant to go into debt to make conservation loans, since




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their repayment will greatly cut profits in the event of lower prices or a frost. However,other-largely new-factors now influence their decision to make the investment despitethe risks involved. Of major importance is the fact that coffee trees that have beenproducing for fifteen or twenty years on sandy soil, like most of those in Parana, giveextremely small harvests if fertilizer is not applied. Secondly, since coffee is aprice-supported crop, its cultivators are assured that the bottom will not completely fallout of the market and that they will receive at least some return on their investment. Inaddition, loans for fertilizer and other conservation techniques now are readily availablefrom the Bank of Brazil at very low interest rates. Finally, the present supply of virginfrontier land in Brazil suitable for coffee cultivation is extremely limited,13 thus closingthe traditional escape hatch for planters with exhausted soils. These recent cir-cumstances, then, have tempered frontier cultivators' usual unwillingness to becomeindebted in order to conserve their land. If this peculiar set of factors which influence thecoffee planters of Parana is taken into account, however, then their behavior may be theexception which helps to prove the rule.

In order to complete the discussion of economic factors which affect the nature offrontier agriculture, the following questions should be raised: Why did cotton and coffeeplanters in the United States and Brazil show such blind devotion to their respectivecrops? Why, for example, did they refuse to plant alternative cash crops with more stableprice structures or cultivate subsistence crops on a larger scale? The answer, in part, isthat in the regions in which they were grown, cotton and coffee were the most profitablecrops.

Several factors stimulated the monocrop economy in the southern United States. Forone, cotton could be grown over a wider region than any other cash crop. Rice, sugarcane, and tobacco demanded soil and climatic conditions that prevented their extensionover all the available territory (Cohn 1956:45). Then too, cotton, which has a longgrowing season and periodically requires intensive hand labor, limited crop diversification;cotton left no surplus labor for tending other crops. Subsistence crops were not widelygrown in the southern cotton region because, as we have seen, both land and labor wereconsidered too valuable to expend on them, particularly when cotton prices were high.Moreover, foodstuffs could be easily imported from the border states and othernoncotton producing regions. In addition, cotton was always marketable, while at timesthere were no mechanisms for marketing alternative cash crops (Cohn 1956:51). Finally,cotton meant credit to buy supplies and slaves and to acquire more land-credit whichwas never available on the same scale for other cash crops.

Somewhat similar factors encouraged monocrop cultivation in Brazil. Since coffee is aperennial, it is incompatible with crop rotation-one means of crop diversification. Coffeeis also a labor-intensive crop, and its annual cycle conflicts with another potentialmoney-maker-cotton-in that their harvests fall at the same time of year (James1959:493). Subsistence crops were not grown on a large scale in Brazil's coffee regionbecause land was too valuable to devote to them alone, and intertilling food crops withcoffee tends to rob the latter of soil nutrients and reduce the trees' yields. Nevertheless,intertilling was practiced by the owners of small holdings to help meet their subsistenceneeds. Also, coffee had government price supports which insured that its price would notfall precipitously, while the returns on alternative unsupported crops fluctuated wildlyaccording to the laws of supply and demand. Cultivating productive coffee trees alsoguaranteed easy access to credit, an advantage not afforded by any other cash crop. Thefinal factor wedding planters to coffee is probably the most important one: coffee




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produced the highest returns on investment. Even during periods of relatively low prices,there was no other crop which could compete with coffee in terms of profitability.1 4At this point, a word on the various labor systems employed on the two frontiers is inorder. Even though a variety of labor arrangements existed on the cotton frontier in theUnited States and the coffee frontier in Brazil, similar adaptations to frontier conditionsarose in both cases. During various periods these frontier lands were cultivated by slaves,

sharecroppers, day laborers, co/onos,15 tenant farmers, and small holders. What isstriking, however, is that despite the great differences in the actual operation of thesediverse labor systems and the class relations to which they gave rise,16 the economic andecological factors present on these frontiers appear to have overridden the differences inlabor arrangements and to have produced remarkably similar behavioral gambits on thepart of large holders and small.

Before turning to the ecological factors which affect frontier cash crop regimes, it isvery important to emphasize that a number of the economic factors which influencefrontier agriculture are not controlled locally: they stem from the frontiers' dependentrelationship with other world areas. World market price and the availability of creditl 7and marketing facilities are determined by forces largely or totally outside of the frontierregions in which the cash crops are actually grown. This was the case in both the southernUnited States and southern Brazil. Their cotton and coffee frontiers were satellites of

metropoles (Frank 1969). In the early years of cotton cultivation, the American southwas an international satellite of England, because, in part, the British market fortextiles was largely responsible for making cotton the boom crop that it was, and Britishcapital played a major role in the development of the cotton frontier (Allen 1959:40).Later, however, the south's dependency on the British market was replaced by an equallystrong dependency on northern business: The most striking characteristic of Southerneconomy was that, although the colonial connection with England had been broken, anew colonialism arose with respect to Northern business (Eaton 1961:196).

Initially, investments in Brazil's coffee industry were made largely by Brazilian capital,but soon British capital entered the scene after Brazilian capital had paved the way andshown the profit (Frank 1969:168). The coffee frontier's satellite status crystallizedwith heavy British investment in railroad construction in Sao Paulo and Parana andBritish-financed improvement of the port facilities in Santos. Foreign interests in Britain,France, and the United States took over most of the coffee export trade and, later, someof its domestic financing and production. Today, seven of the ten largest coffee-exportingfirms in Brazil are in North American hands (Frank 1969:253). The coffee frontier'sdependence upon the metropole(s) perhaps is best illustrated by the disastrous plunge incoffee prices during the world economic crisis of 1929.

The details of the relationship between the metropoles and their frontier satellitesdeserve a separate volume and clearly are beyond the scope of this paper. In addition, thequestion of possible similarities and differences in the influence of these factors innoncapitalist political economies can not be dealt with here. Whether or not frontier cashcrop agriculturalists would exhibit similar behavioral gambits within the context ofstrongly centralized political systems with tightly controlled colonization programs is aseparate, although related, topic. Whatever the case in socialist political economies, thereis no doubt that the dependent status of frontier areas within capitalist systems greatlyinfluences the behavior of resident cultivators and, therefore, indirectly contributes to thedestructive nature of frontier cash crop agriculture.




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the destructive cycle: ecological considerationsThere are important ecological considerationswhich influence the course of frontiercash crop agriculture.Perhaps oremost among them is the effect of simply clearingtheland of its forest overgrowth for cultivation. Virgin soil protected by its naturalvegetation changes very slowly in composition. When cultivation gets under way,however, when the soil covering is broken and crops are taken out, changeoccurs farmorerapidly.A numberof processesareinvolved n soil modificationand depletion. Firstis the loss of materialsdue to the growthandharvesting f crops.The removalof organicmatter results in at least temporary impoverishmentof the soil, which diminishes theavailability of important nutrients to subsequent crops, unless, of course, they arerestoredby artificialmeans-e.g., fertilizers.Also, with the removalof the forestcanopy,the soil, for the first time, is directly exposed to the elements,most notablyrainfall.Thedamagedone by rainfall comes not only from the actualcarryingawayof soil particlesin suspension (erosion), but also by the removalof materials in solution (leaching)(Craven1925:16). The materialcarriedaway by the watersalso lessenthe soil'sfertility,since potassium, phosphorous,calcium, nitrogen,etc., are carriedoff and no longerareavailable as plant food. Although hilly areas are most endangeredby the hazards ofrainfall,all landsundercultivationaresubjectto at leastsome depletionfrom this source.The final factor contributing to the diminished fertility of cultivated soils is thedevelopmentof harmful oxins, fungi,and diseases n them.Althoughtheir effects on soilfertility are variableand in part dependon the soil's originalcompositionand in partonthe cultivation techniquesemployed, they often play a role in soil depletion (Craven1925:15-19). The point of these ecological considerationsis that cultivation on virginland-cultivation of whatever ort-opens the pathto deterioration.Since unstable and unpredictablenaturalconditions, particularlyweatherconditionsand the appearanceof insect pests, encourageexploitativecultivationpractices, hey areanother set of ecologicalfactors which lead indirectlyto soil depletion in frontierareasdevoted to cash crops (Ciriacy-Wantrup963:201). Althoughfrosts,droughts,and insectpests are hardly unique to frontier zones, they often constitute serious threats tocultivationin them and amplify the uncertaintycaused by pricefluctuations(see p. 49).Instabilityin naturalconditionsaffects the cultivators'behavior n regard o conservationdecisions, because the fear of a severefrost or droughtmakesthem reluctant o investinfertilizers and other conservationmeasures;should such a naturaldisasteroccur, theirinvestmentwould be lost and they mightevenfind themselves n debt.Uncertainconditions of this type played majorroles on the two agriculturalrontiersunder discussion.The primarynaturalscourgesof cotton culture in the southernUnitedStates were excessive rainfall,droughts,and the infamous boll weevil. Too much rainsometimesdelayed harvestingand damagedthe cotton crop;it also enhancedthe growthof noxious plant life as well as insect pests. Droughtsoccurringduringcritical phasesofthe growingcycle adverselyaffected the quality and quantity of the yields. Finally, theboll weevil,whichmultiplied n hugenumbers n the cool, rainyclimateof the South, hadto be controlled,or it too could devastatethe cotton crop (Cohn1956:175).In most areas of Brazil in which coffee was grown, frosts were the majornaturalphenomenonendangering he trees'yields. Frostshaveperiodicallyeliminatedharvests nSao Pauloand Parana, nd,on occasion,severeones havekilledthe coffee trees.As notedabove, during times of high prices, the threat of frost damagewas aggravatedby theexpansionof coffee cultivationinto frost-proneregions.The link betweenfrost risk andconservation decisions is illustrated by the behaviorof cultivators in Ouro Verde, a




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coffee county in northern Parana.There, many farmers are afraid of applying chemicalfertilizer; in the event of a frost or a drought that destroys the berries, their wholeinvestment is lost, because fertilizer already applied will not benefit subsequent harvests(Margolis 1973:171).Once again, the dependence of frontier zones on their metropoles contributes to theexploitative nature of frontier agriculture-in this case, to ecological degradation.Metropolitan interests demand that their satellites grow that which is marketable (notnecessarily that which is most needed to meet the nutritional requirements of the frontierpopulation). Furthermore, since the cash crops are sold in distant markets, the metropolereceives no feedback concerning critical ecological factors affecting the frontier. But evenif metropolitan interests were aware of the ecological damage wrought by the cultivationof the desired cash crop, they probably would not take heed of the problem, becausethey would have nothing to gain-or, rather, little to lose-from the environmentaldegradation of a distant satellite zone. For the metropole, it is more efficient to utilize asystem at full rate until it is exhausted of the desired resource, and then to seek anotherpopulation to appropriate (Weiss 1975:22).

tobacco, anchovies, orangesIn an attempt to demonstrate that the cotton cultivators of the southern United Statesand their counterparts in southern Brazil are by no means unique in the opportunisticcharacter of their behavior toward natural resources, the strategies of cash crop cultivatorsin colonial Virginiaand Maryland will be examined briefly.18The earliest frontier boom crop in what was to become the United States wastobacco grown in the colonies of Virginia and Maryland. Tobacco was first cultivated in

Virginia in 1616, and with the increasing demand for the crop in England along with thecolony's near monopoly of it, by 1617 tobacco was being grown in the streets and marketsquare of Jamestown. Production skyrocketed, and, in 1620, 40,000 tons were exportedto England (Courtenay 1965:12).The population of Virginia swelled fairly rapidly, spurred on by the policy thatindividuals who emigrated to the colony at their own expense could claim fifty acres ofland, provided that they cleared it and at least nominally occupied it (Courtenay1965: 13). The expansion of tobacco cultivation continued apace; by 1630 clearings werebeing made on the York River and somewhat later along the Rappahannock andPotomac. The march of tobacco continued unabated until the hard times during thelast quarter of the seventeenth century (Craven 1926:63).At first, tobacco brought a high price-five shillings per pound-but as early as 1630,the price fell to two pence per pound as a result of overproduction. Throughout thecolonial period the price of tobacco fluctuated wildly, but despite some lean years,profits from growing the crop were generally high during the first five or six decades ofthe era, as the rather luxurious life style that arose in the tobacco region attested. Evenafter the boom days had passed, one contemporary observer estimated that a planter'sinitial investment of fifty pounds sterling had grown to 600 pounds sterling within twoyears (Craven 1926:39).The prices received for tobacco in the early days were so high that a man's labor intobacco production yielded him six times as large a return as might be secured from anyother crop (Craven 1926:30). It is not surprising, then, that tobacco was planted onalmost all available land and that many planters were forced to purchase at least part oftheir food crops. Tobacco also encouraged monocrop production in that its periods of




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soil preparation,planting,and harvesting oincided with those of corn andwheat. Laborwas simply too expensive to expend on these staples, given the profits that could beobtainedfrom growingtobaccoon newlycleared and. Inaddition,towardthe end of thecolonial period monocrop production was spurred by the authorities because of therevenue taxes on tobacco added to the Royal Treasury. Any attempts by planterstocultivate alternative crops were met with official discouragement(Craven1926:31,40-41).Tobacco also enjoyed decided advantagesover other crops in termsof transport.Itkept well, and its weight when readyfor shipmentwasfairlylow, both important actorsbecause its majormarketlay thousandsof milesacrossthe open sea.Only tobaccocouldpay the high costs of transportationand still return a profit to its planters (Craven1926:30-31).There is no doubt that the cultivation techniquesemployed by the colonial tobaccoplanterswerewastefulof the land.No effort wasmadeto preserve he soil's ertility;sincetobacco used the entire labor force as well as the best lands, the supply of animalstoproduce manure for fertilizer was severely limited. However,as long as an abundantsupply of virgin land was available to which planterscould move once their currentholdings were depleted, the problemwas not a seriousone. The scarcityof capitalalsoplayed a role in soil depletion. From the earliest period tobacco was based on hoecultivation. 9 The surfacesoils were loosened by a continual but shallow stirringof theplants' roots. The deeper soils were not touched and turnedup to the surfaceto givenew suppliesof food materialsnor the depthgivento the surfacesoils that wouldenablethem to absorbrainfalland preventwashing (Craven1926:35). Such techniquesclearlyinvitederosion.Another contributorto soil depletionwasthe highcost of labor,a result of its relativescarcityon the colonial frontier. Accordingto Craven,a laborercost four timesas muchas the land which he could tend (1926:36), and becauseof its high cost, planterswereforced to make the most of their workersregardlessof the ill effects on the soil. Aninexpensive aborsupplywas one of the planters'goals,not preservation f the land.Since high quality tobacco could be producedonly on the freshest soil, after thesecond crop was harvestedthe land usually was abandoned.Plantersrarelytook morethan four or five crops out of a given field becausesubsequentharvestsdeclinedin bothquality and quantity. This wastefulfrontier method of agriculturewas largelyfollowedbecauseof the highcost of laborand the illimitablereservesof land,rather han becauseof ignoranceor carelessness Eaton 1949:27). In fact, the movementto virgin and wasso rapid that the terms tobacco lands and new lands becamesynonymous (Craven1926:32).The resultof these practiceswas soil depletion and erosion on a massive cale. As thetobacco frontier moved into ever newer lands, it left behind gulliedfields which weresometimes briefly given over to corn cultivation before turning to secondary forestgrowth.The Virginiaand Maryland ountryside,coveredwith yellow sedgeand old fieldpines, hadan unkemptand wornout aspect (Eaton 1961:4). The dilapidatedmansionsand desertedlog cabinsof the regionwere reminders f the heydayof tobaccoculture,aswell as symbols of the desolate aftermath of cash crop agricultureon the colonialfrontier.Another striking example of gross exploitation of a naturalresource involvingbe-havioral components similar to those displayed by frontier cultivators is instructivesince it is not found within the context of a frontier agriculturalregime.This is theanchoveta ('anchovy') industry in Peru. Here, the ocean is the frontier, and the

56 american thnologist



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anchovy of the Humboldt current, which is made into fish meal, the valuable resourcebeing exploited. The fish meal industry of Peru, funded by massive investments ofEuropean and North American capital, is a relatively new one. It got underway in the late1950s and was soon heralded as the salvation of the Peruvian economy. The ocean wasglowingly described as the big new eldorado... the scene of the great adventure of ourdays (Borgstrom 1972:763).

During the first decade, both catches and profits were huge; during the peak year of1970, 12.3 million tons of anchovies were scooped from the Pacific Ocean off the coastof Peru (Idyll 1973:26).20 Profit margins were enormous, exceeding 100 percent duringthe first years, when fish meal sold for $250 to $300 per ton (Borgstrom 1972:766). It isnot surprising that thousands of fishermen and fish meal companies were attracted to thisventure.But as was the case with the agricultural frontiers reviewed, the boom did not last. Theconcentration of fish meal plants in one area led to overfishing which resulted in declining

yields of anchovy and the capture of young fish. Fishermen began complaining of smallercatches,2 and this, combined with a lower price received for anchovies, $124 per ton in1968, resulted in considerably reduced profits (Borgstrom 1972:766).The ocean, then, is structurally equivalent to frontier lands in that, like them, it is

cheap and there for the taking. Just as the supply of fresh frontier land appearedlimitless to its exploiters, so too did this natural ocean resource. Also, like theircounterparts on land, the fishermen and operators of the fish meal industry apparentlygave no thought to the long-range consequences of their over utilization of the anchoveta;as long as profits were high, there was no concern for conserving this valuable resourcethrough a rational program of fish management. Finally, the effects of the dependentstatus of this frontier zone are comparable to those found on agricultural frontiers: fishmeal, an excellent source of high quality protein, was exported to the metropoles forlivestock and poultry feed, rather than being used to meet the nutritional requirements ofthe Peruvian population (Borgstrom 1967:281-282).I had originally planned to include a discussion of the late nineteenth-century citrusindustry in northern Florida as another example of the exploitative nature of frontiercash crop agriculture. After reading about the history of citrus in Florida, however, itbecame apparent that, due to a number of factors, this case did not conform to the thesisof this paper. This example is worth reviewing briefly, however, since as a result of thespecial circumstances of the Florida frontier and the nature of citrus agriculture, it maybe the exception that helps prove the rule.On the surface, the Florida frontier appeared ripe for the sequence of events thatoccurred on the other frontiers devoted to cash crops discussed in this paper-thecombination of an abundance of virgin land and the demand for a valuable cash crop ledto the so-called orange fever of 1880-1895. Settlers from the North flocked to theFlorida frontier spurred on by tales of the fabulous fortunes to be made growing citrus inthe land of sunshine. Orange production boomed: between 1870 and 1880 the value ofthe crop increased fifteenfold, and between 1880 and 1890, it went up sixfold. Duringthe latter decade, the population of the state's orange belt increased by 83 percent(Divine 1952:23, 48-49).Once the groves were established, many planters sat back and waited for the profits topour in. The neglect of weeding, pruning, and fertilizing the groves led to many failures.The efforts of other cultivators came to nothing because they lacked sufficient capital tosustain themselves and their families until the trees bore their first harvest up to ten yearsafter planting. However, unlike the other frontier agriculturalists reviewed, the Florida




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planters did not push on to newer lands hoping to grow the boom crop profitably, whiledespoiling the landscape in the process. Rather, most of those who failed in citruscultivation withdrew from it entirely and returned to their home states in the North.The central question is how did the citrus frontier differ from those alreadyconsidered, such that its cash crop agricultural regime did not lead to environmentaldegradation from exploitative cultivation practices? A number of factors seem to beinvolved. For one, despite the abundance of cultivable land in Florida, rather limitedareas of it were close enough to transportation facilities to make citrus cultivationfeasible. This was particularly the case when steamboats were the principle means oftransporting and marketing the crop, and orange cultivation closely hugged the shores ofnavigable waterways. The problem was not entirely resolved, however, even after railroadnetworks crisscrossed the orange belt during the height of the citrus boom; the greatweight and bulk of the crop made transporting it even a short distance to the rail linesprohibitively expensive. As a result, undeveloped land very near transportationappreciated rapidly, bringing $40 per acre even during the early years of the boom. Simi-larly located land with producing trees often sold for $1,000 per acre (Divine 1952:47).Another factor which led to the very rapid increase in land prices on the orange beltwas the activities of speculators and land companies. They propagandized potentialsettlers from outside the state with extravagant tales of the fabulous profits that could bemade from citrus and they created the impression that orange growing was a bonanzawhich could enrich all who tried it (Divine 1952:41). It goes without saying that thesespeculators upped the price of land considerably when they sold it to Northernimmigrants.Land companies and individual speculators were also at least partially responsible forcreating the illusion that only a modest investment was needed to start an orange grove,while downplaying the fact that up to ten years would elapse before its first harvest. As aresult, many arrived on the Florida frontier with far too little capital to see them through;they failed before they had really begun. These people simply lacked the resources tomove along with the frontier and invest in somewhat less costly land at its outer edges.Under the circumstances outlined above, it becomes clear why the Florida citrus boomdid not follow the course of the other frontier crops discussed previously. Mostimportantly, there was never a free or cheap land situation during the period whenthe demand for oranges far exceeded the supply, making their cultivation an extremelyprofitable enterprise. Then, too, citrus agriculture requires far greater resources than theother cash crops reviewed, if only because the trees take so long to produce. Finally,because of the length of time between planting and the first harvest, citrus culture isnecessarily a more stable enterprise than the others discussed; its planters areunderstandably reluctant to pull up stakes and start over again on new land, only to waitanother eight or ten years before their first profits are realized.In one respect, however, the orange boom in northern Florida conforms to thescenario of other cash crops grown in frontier regions. During the period that high priceswere received for the crop, the orange belt extended far north of its climatological limits.As a result, a series of killing frosts in the 1890s completely devastated the citrus industryin northern Florida, and the once bountiful groves of the region gave way to pasture inless than a decade.frontier cultivators as fugitive species

At the beginning of this paper, it was suggested that the behavior of frontier cash cropcultivators is analogous to the adaptations of fugitive species. A brief review of the




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evolutionary strategies of these species will point out the similarities between theiradaptivegambitsand those of theirhumancounterparts.In the literature, ugitivespeciesare called by a numberof terms- r-selectedspecies,opportunists, prodigals, and pioneers. By whatevername they are known, thesespecies are adaptedto changingconditions in time andspace (Margalef 968:88); theyare able to take advantageof transitoryand unstable situations (Leopold 1966:66),and they are successful colonizers because of their preferencefor unstable,scatteredhabitats (MacArthurand Wilson 1967:82). Becauseof their predilectionfor disturbedecological conditions,fugitivespecies frequentlyarefound in habitatsundergoing hange,for example, those that have been modifiedby humanactivity (Leopold1966:68). Theyare opportunists that invadevirginsoil left uncoveredby retreatingglaciersand thatoccupy areaswherea temporary reedomfrom competition accompanies he upsettingof the naturalbalanceby axes, plows, bulldozers,etc. (Erdman1965:367).Since fugitive species are able to survivein changingenvironments within a singleregion, they also arepreadapted o colonizingneighboring egions(MacArthurndWilson1967:82). Good dispersalmechanismswhich enable them to enter proximateareas areessential for their existence, because fugitive species cannot compete successfullywithany otherspeciesable to invadethe sameniche.

They are forever on the move, always becoming extinct in one locality as they succumb tocompetition and always surviving by reestablishing themselves in some other locality as a newniche opens (Hudson 1951:575).Time is of the essence for the fugitivespecies. Itsadaptation s heavily dependentuponits ability to take immediate advantageof a newly availableniche before more slowlymoving competitors enter it. Later, the fugitive will become extinct, but some of itsdescendants [will] occupy transitorily a temporarily available niche in some otherlocality (Hudson 1951:575). Since fugitive species and their rivalsare able to occupyidentical environmentalniches, it is not surprising hat they are closely allied on theevolutionaryscale.It is widely recognized that, as with fugitive species, certain benefits accrue tocultivatorswho are the first to arriveand takeadvantageof new opportunities n frontiersituations. Ulrich B. Phillipshas written that cotton cultivators n the Piedmontregionofthe southern United States were correct in believingthat their success in the wildernessdependedupon a quick exploitation of the best favored ocalities,upongettingaheadofthe crowd (1929:96). Similarly,Bowman has noted that a largepartof the advantageof pioneering ies in gettingtherefirst, becausethe essenceof the thingis to get good landcheap (1931:6). The chainspeculators of the North American rontieralso illustratethis point: those who arrivedearly made land claimsand, without improving he land,sold the claimsfor $50 to $100 to later settlers before movingwest to makenew claims(Gates1965:52).The gainsderivedfrom beingaheadof the crowd also areapparenton the Braziliancoffee frontier. In northern Parana,upward mobility through land acquisition waspossible only to early arrivalson the frontier. Even those with relatively little capitalcould saveenough money to buy frontierplots by sharecropping ighlyproductivecoffeetrees on newly cultivated and. Laterarrivalswith few financialresources ost out becausewithin two decades coffee yields had declined, cutting the sharecropper'sprofits andeliminating he possibilityof buyingland(Margolis1971).The recurrentcolonization of similar niches is another characteristiccommon toboth fugitive species and their humancounterparts.In many cases, the same individualsled the southwestwardadvance of the cotton frontier in the UnitedStates: one family of




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South Carolinacotton plantersmoved to the Alabama rontierto set up a plantation,butwithin ten years they had pushedon to greenerpastures n Texas (Eaton1961:38-39).In other cases, the childrenof frontier cultivatorswerein the vanguard f the movementwest. Then, too, the near depopulation of older cotton (and coffee) regionswhich theever-advancingrontier left in its wake is somewhat analogousto the extinction of afugitive species in one localityas its descendants nvadedandcolonized another.There is some evidence that frontier cash crop cultivators, like fugitive species, areunable to compete successfullywith laterarrivals.As we haveseen, gettingthere first isa necessaryelement in the successof frontieragriculturalists.Manyarriveon the frontierwith little capital, so that it is essentialthat landbe inexpensive f they are to purchase tat all. As the boom crop takes off and the supply of virgin land diminishes, landincreases n value, effectively pricing he cultivatorwith few financialresourcesout of themarket.This point is well illustratedon the Paranarontier.Individualswho boughtlandafter the first decadeof colonizationinvariably ame to the frontierwith far larger apitalreserves than did those who purchasedland during the very first years of settlement(Margolis1973:211). It is in the economicsense, then, that most earlysettlersareunableto compete with later arrivals.After the free or cheap land situationof initial frontiersettlement disappears, uccess-i.e., acquiring and-comes to dependon havingconsider-able financialresourcesat the time of arrivalon the frontier.The final analogybetween the strategiesof fugitivespeciesandfrontieragriculturalistsis their persistence: what works in one locality will work in another. As cash cropcultivatorsin Brazil and the UnitedStatesmovedalongwith the advancingrontier, theyused more or less the same agriculturalmethods they had employed in the past. Evenifinnovative agriculturaltechniques had been readily accessible and affordable,successrarelydependedupon theiradoption.In summary, there are a number of parallels in the adaptivestrategiesof certainnonhumanspecies and the behavioral trategiesof frontiercash crop agriculturalists. nboth cases, success is contingentupon breakingnewground,on takingadvantageof freshopportunities,on quicklyoccupyingandexploitinga newlyavailable nvironmental one.Fugitive species and their humananaloguesare also adept at colonizing neighboring orsimilar)niches as soon as they open up; their ability to move rapidly s a key to survival(or success).Their extinction in or migration romone localedoes not spell theirdemise;at least some individuals urvive(orsucceed)by movingon to still newer horizons.Final-ly, although these opportunistsusually cannot compete successfullywith laterarrivals,they neverthelesspersist;by using time-worntechniques,they are able to vacatethe oldandadaptto the new.conclusion

Short-term benefits are important to people now alive and are valued more highly than benefitsto future generations. -S. 1.Schwartz and T. C. Foinin A Critical Review of the Social Systems Model of Jay ForresterThe above quotation is particularlyappropriate or concludinga discussionof thenature of frontier cash crop agricultureand its destructiveeffects on naturalresources.There is a good deal of evidencethat,under conditionsof uncertainty,humanbeingsoptfor schemes with superiorshort-termgains.This is an axiom of humanbehavior hat hasbeen observed by many scholars in diverse fields. In his analysis of the social andecological consequences of the Miskito Indians'commercialexploitation of turtlesand




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other animal resources, for example, Nietschmann concludes that short-term economicreturns will be gained at the expense of social and ecological disruptions (1972:66).More pertinent to the subject under discussion is Craven's remark that the only methodsemployed by frontier cultivators are those which give greatest immediate returnsregardless of future consequences (1925:21).

The adap.tive strategies of cash crop agriculturalists in frontier zones also must beinterpreted from the standpoint of the short- versus long-term gains which accrue tothem. Cultivators' decisions with respect to the adoption (or nonadoption) ofconservation measures are influenced by a number of factors: uncertain naturalconditions, price fluctuations, access to untapped frontier resources, and scarcities oflabor and capital. If the threats of lower prices and adverse weather conditions are takeninto account, it becomes apparent why cultivators are reluctant to invest the relativelylarge sums necessary to maintain their soil's fertility. Given these conditions, particularlythe availability of inexpensive virgin frontier land, the cultivators' interests do not lie inexpending their limited capital on conserving their current holdings, especially if soildepletion already has set in. Despite its long-term costs to natural resources, then, thefailure to employ conservation techniques must be viewed as a rational choice within theeconomic and ecological contexts of frontier cash crop agriculture.The opportunistic mentality so often attributed to frontier cultivators also iscomprehensible within the framework of these etic conditions. Their orientation towardthe present is adaptive, given the uncertain nature of frontier existence brought about byfactors largely beyond their control. For these reasons, it is important to bear in mindthat the exploitative stance vis-a-vis natural resources found among North American andBrazilian frontier cultivators is not unique; similar values can be expected to prevailwherever similar conditions exist.

notesA brief version of this paper was presented at the 74th annual meeting of the AmericanAnthropological Association in San Francisco in 1975. I am very indebted to Professor Andrew P.Vayda of Rutgers University for introducing me to the literature on fugitive species. I also would liketo thank Dr. Jerald T. Milanich and Dr. Donald Rice of the Florida State Museum and ProfessorCharles Wagley and Mr. Anthony Stocks of the University of Florida for their comments on a draft ofthis paper.2The definition of analogy used in this paper is as follows: A resemblance in some particularsbetween things otherwise unlike (Gove 1965).3In recent ecological theory, fugitive species have been termed r-selected species. r-selected

species are species having high rates of reproduction and growth with the ability to exploit unusedresources in the early colonization of new ecological niches (Odum 1971:257). Success among suchspecies is linked to their ability to disperse into an area, establish themselves, and multiply (Emlen1973:356).4Ciriacy-Wantrup summarizes the reasons for this: An economy that produces mainly for homeconsumption utilizes its resources more conservatively, as a rule, than one that produces largely forsale at distant markets. The former usually is more diversified, more immune from price fluctuations,less subject to adverse effects of taxation, credit, and tenure (1963:13).sThe Northern Parana Improvement Company (Compania Melhoramentos Norte do Parana),which colonized much of this region, offered relatively generous payment plans; 40 percent of theprice of the land as a down payment, with the balance to be paid over a four year period (Margolis1973:37).6The coffee plantations often were sold to settlers from Minas Gerais who were establishing cattleranches. In many cases, however, when the coffee planters defaulted on their loans, their holdingswere taken over by the banks (see Stein 1957).7One bag contains sixty kilograms of coffee.8This contradicts the safety-valve theory of frontier settlement, which argues that in hard timesthe poor and unemployed moved west to buy cheap land and set up farms. The frontier was said to




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afford an escape mechanism which drained excess workers from the urban areas of the East (seeTurner 1920 and Billington 1966).9The most recent frost in southern Brazil, which is reputed to be the most severe one in at leastfifty years, occurred in July, 1975. It is estimated to have destroyed 70 percent of the country'scoffee crop (Gainesville Sun, August 14, 1975).1 Coffee cultivation continued its expansion into extreme western Parana and into Paraguayin thelate 1960s and early 1970s, despite the relatively low price received for the crop. However, it was stillthe most profitable cash crop in the region (see Margolis 1973, Ch. 8).1 This is a particularly acute problem for coffee cultivators, since the trees take four years toproduce their first harvest, and it is not until the fifth year after planting that full yields are produced.12One study carried out in Jamaica found that farmers were willing to adopt conservationmeasures, but the scarcity of capital and labor prevented them from doing so. Further, there provedto be a strong relationship between capital availability and the acceptance of capital requiring soilconservation measures; generally only those with more than the average amount of capital responded(Blaut, et al. 1959:419).1 There are still frontier lands suitable for coffee cultivation in Paraguay. These offer a morelimited escape hatch for Brazilian planters, however, since their utilization requires operating in aforeign country.

14See Margolis (1973:68-69) for comparative costs and profits for coffee, cotton, corn, and cattlein a county in northern Parana.15Colonos are workers paid on a monthly basis to care for a given number of coffee trees. Thissystem was widely used in Sao Paulo and to a lesser extent on the Paranafrontier.16For an excellent discussion of the class relations produced by varying land and laborarrangements in export-propelled agricultural systems see Paige (1975).lBanks were ready to extend credit for cotton and coffee for which they knew there was ademand, but not for other crops, particularly food crops, with dubious marketability.18The example of resource exploitation on the Virginia and Marylandfrontiers in the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries is particularly relevant here, since it demonstrates that the opportunisticbehavior of frontier cash crop cultivators is not limited to the context of subtropical crops for which ademand developed in the nineteenth century.19The plow did not come into general use in tobacco cultivation until late in the colonial period,when the land into which the crop could expand was nearly exhausted and old lands were againcultivated (Craven 1926:35).20The actual catch of anchovies in 1970 is conservatively estimated at thirteen to fourteen milliontons when losses from spoilage are included in the total. This far exceeds the ten-million-ton maximumsustainable yield recommended by fishery biologists (Idyll 1973:29).21 El Nino, a natural ecological change in the waters off the coast of Peru, is possibly alsoresponsible for the decline in the anchovy catch. During El Nino the coastal waters rise in temperature,and this, in combination with the dwindling of the microscopic plants and animals off which theanchovies feed, leads to a scattering of the fish so that they are no longer available in enormousquantities to fishermen. There is no doubt, however, that over-fishing has worsened the effects of ElNiho and there is some reason to fear that the world's greatest stock of fish may have beenirreversibly damaged. (Idyll 1973:28).

referencescitedAbernethy, Thomas P.1922 The Formative Period in Alabama, 1815-1828. Montgomery: Brown.Allen, H. C.1959 Bush and Backwoods: A Comparison of the Frontier in Australia and the United States.East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.Bennett, John W.1969 Northern Plainsmen, Adaptive

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