Larding the Lean Earth by Steven Stoll
Will says:
Steven Stoll takes a historical look at the debates within the farming community in 19th century America, centering on the disputes between “emigrants,” those who thought soil exhaustion justified westward expansion, and the “improvers” who were intent on conservation of agrarian land through improvement techniques (fallowing, manure, forests, etc). These “improvers” are, in many ways, America’s proto-conservationists.