Download or read book Larding the Lean Earth written by Steven Stoll and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2003-07-03 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Major History of Early Americans' Ideas about Conservation Fifty years after the Revolution, American farmers faced a crisis: the failing soils of the Atlantic states threatened the agricultural prosperity upon which the republic was founded. Larding the Lean Earth explores the tempestuous debates that erupted between "improvers," intent on sustaining the soil of existing farms, and "emigrants," who thought it wiser and more "American" to move westward as the soil gave out. Larding the Lean Earth is a signal work of environmental history and an original contribution to the study of antebellum America.