1. Drought-resistant crop varieties

Crops were imported from the steppe to the Great

Plains by migrants, in particular Mennonites, who

moved from today’s southern Ukraine to Kansas in the

1870s. They brought over a hard, red, winter wheat that

became known as ‘Turkey Red’.

Further crops were imported by the USDA from the steppe at the turn of the

twentieth century as varieties from the steppes had proved their worth in drought

conditions on the Great Plains in the 1890s.

A key role was played by USDA cereal scientist Mark Alfred

Carleton (1866-1925) who worked with Mennonites on the

Great Plains and visited the steppe in 1898-9 and 1900. He

introduced further varieties of hard, red, winter wheat and

hard, spring durum wheat.

By the1920s, a large part of the wheat on the Great Plains

was varieties from the steppe.

Conclusions

This research presents an example of Americans learning from Russian

and Ukrainian agricultural sciences, techniques and crops devised on the

steppe, which was settled and cultivated before the Great Plains.

After some resistance and a language barrier, a series of influences

moved from East to West.

This was possible because of a number of factors:

1. Migrants, e.g. Mennonite farmers and scientists such as Raphael Zon

2. Personal contacts, e.g. Carleton – Mennonites

3. Scientific literature, e.g. Glinka – Marbut

4. International meetings, e.g. Soil Science Congress, 1927

5. Role of personalities, e.g. Carleton, Marbut, Zon

Bibliography

David Moon, The Plough that Broke the Steppes: Agriculture and Environment

on Russia’s Grasslands, 1700-1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2013)

David Moon, ‘The Grasslands of North America and Russia’, in J.R.

McNeill and Erin Stewart Maudlin (eds), A Companion to Global

Environmental History (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012): 247-62

(Ukrainian translation [forthcoming], ‘СТЕПИ ПІВНІЧНОЇ АМЕРИКИ ТА

РОСІЇ’, Наукові праці історичного факультету Запорізького

національного університету, выпуск 42)

David Moon, ‘In the Russians’ Steppes: The Introduction of Russian

Wheat on the Great Plains of the United States of America’, Journal of

Global History, 3 (2008): 203-225

(Russian translation: ‘ИНТРОДУКЦИЯ РУССКОЙ ПШЕНИЦЫ НА

ВЕЛИКИХ РАВНИНАХ США', Американский ежегодник, 2011: 161-76)

David Moon, ‘The Environmental History of the Russian Steppes: Vasilii

Dokuchaev and the Harvest Failure of 1891', Transactions of the Royal

Historical Society, 6th ser., 15 (2005): 149-174

(Russian translation: ‘ЭКОЛОГИЧЕСКАЯ ИСТОРИЯ РОССИЙСКИХ

СТЕПЕЙ: ВАСИЛИЙ ДОКУЧАЕВ И НЕУРОЖАЙ 1891 г.’ Вопросы

истории естествознания и техники, 2009. № 3: 48–71)

Alexander Chibilev and Sergei Levykin, ‘Virgin Lands divided by an

Ocean: The Fate of Grasslands in the Northern Hemisphere’, translated

and annotated by David Moon, Nova Acta Leopoldina, Neue Folge, 114,

no.390 (2013), pp.91-103

The Main Influences

Mennonite farmers in Kansas (late nineteenth century)

Introduction

This poster presents influences from the Russian-Ukrainian steppe in

the transformation of the American Great Plains from grassland to

major agricultural region between the 1870s and 1940s.

Both regions share similar environments and environmental histories.

Both were grasslands, inhabited by mobile peoples who herded or

hunted animals. Both were settled by farmers of European origin who

ploughed up the very fertile soils. In good years, they reaped bumper

harvests. However, both suffered from unreliable rainfall and high winds.

In bad years, e.g. 1891-2 on the steppe and the 1930s on the Great

Plains, droughts were accompanied by dust storms, crop failures,

population exoduses, and, on the steppe, famines.

The steppe underwent the transformation to agricultural region several

decades before the Great Plains. Thus, Plains farmers and the US Dept

of Agriculture (USDA) were able to learn from Russian-Ukrainian

experience.

The Great Plains

The Eurasian Steppe, including the Russian and Ukrainian steppe

2. Genetic soil science that considers soils as the products of the

environment in which they formed (i.e. genetic from genesis).

Soil profile showing soil horizons:

A horizon = top soil

B horizon = transition layer

C horizon = parent rock

Dokuchaev showed that soils form as a result of the interaction of ‘soil forming

factors’, thus soils are a product of: eroded parent rock + rotted organic

matter (e.g. steppe grasses) + the climate + the relief of the land over time.

Understanding how soils form is important for working out ways to use soils

sustainably to maintain their fertility.

American soil scientists became acquainted with Russian genetic soil science from

English and German translations of works by Dokuchaev and his students, e.g.

Konstantin Glinka (1867-1927), and international meetings.

The key figure was Curtis F. Marbut (1863–1935), head of the US Soil Survey,

1911-35, who overcame institutional resistance and adapted Russian soil science for

use by the Soil Survey. From the 1930s, US government soil maps described the soils

of the Great Plains as chernozem, the Russian term.

Continental excursion after

1st International Congress

of Soil Science, Washington,

DC, 1927.

Marbut, 2nd from left;

Glinka, 3rd from left.

Photograph courtesy of

Missouri State Historical

Society.

4. Tumbleweed

Perhaps the most enduring influence is an icon of the

American West: the tumbleweed, aka Russian thistle,

Перекати-поле, kali tragus. It was imported by mistake

from the steppe to the Dakota territory by Mennonite

migrants in the 1870s, and then spread rapidly across the

Great Plains in spite of attempts to eradicate it.

Above: Tumbleweed in local museum in Kherson, southern

Ukraine

Below: Tumbleweed on the Great Plains

3. Shelterbelts of trees

Planting trees to shelter the land against the drying influence of the wind and

erosion was pioneered by Mennonite farmers on the steppe in the 1830s-40s.

Further research was carried out by colleagues of Dokuchaev in the 1890s-1900s.

In the 1930s, during the ‘Dust Bowl’, President Franklin D.

Roosevelt launched the Prairies States Forestry

Project to plant shelterbelts across the Great Plains to

reduce wind erosion. The project drew on prior

experience on the steppe.

The key person was Raphael Zon (1874-1956), an

American forester of Russian origin, who served as a

conduit for Russian forestry science to the USA.

Zon with map of Shelterbelt zone on Great Plains.

Shelterbelts at

Kamennaya step’ research

station, southern Russia,

founded by Dokuchaev in

1890s

Devised by Vasilii Dokuchaev

(1846-1903) on basis of

field work on chernozem

(black earth) of the steppe

Presented at the 8th biennial conference of ESEH (The European

Society for Environmental History) in Versailles, France, on 30 June – 3

July 2015, by

David Moon

Anniversary Professor in History

University of York, UK

david.moon@york.ac.uk

Poster produced with assistance from Victoria Beale

The Amerikan Steppe/Американская степь: Influences on the Great Plains from Russia and Ukraine