Letters From An American Farmer, by J. Hector St. John Crevecoeur (PB, reprint of 1782 edition, $1)
Crevecoeur was unique. Born the son of a French count, he moved to Canada, and then to NY. He would work as a surveyor, merchant, explorer,farmer and politician. He was also, in my mind really confused. His main theme was that Americans were conquering the wilderness and its Indians, transforming America into something safe and great. Americans were learning to control their destiny. From battling the land came a new identity, a new vitality, and a new value system. As the first American author widely read in Europe, he was able to introduce Europe to the American dream. Europeans, especially from France, began to immigrate to America. That sounds like a good thing, until you find out that a lot of them died when they got here. (Oops.)
He wrote a lot about the simplicity of the American life, but simple he was not. He loved America but was a loyalist during the Revolution, plus he spent much of his later life in France. He believed in having slaves, but thought slavery was a poison. He talked a lot about American self-sufficiency, but risked his life to go back to France to reclaim his land after the French Revolution. He was big on family, but abandoned them. He saw Indians as inferior, yet respected the Oneidas who adopted him. He portrayed himself as being a farmer, even though he had only farmed for a short while. Finally, he believed in the connection of the farmer with the land he farmed, but Crevecoeur himself hired others to farm his lands. Hmmm.
A lot more straight forward is:
Farm: A Year in the Life of An American Farmer, by Richard Rhodes (HC, 1989, $3)
Rhodes, who won the Pulitzer for an earlier book, follows life on a two square mile Missouri farm. The farmer and his wife struggle with animals, weather, the government and with new technologies of machinery, chemicals and genetics. City people think of farming as being a simple life. It isn't. I found that out on my trips to rural Ohio. (Florence, thank you for all your teachings.)
Look for these books on the new non-ficion table, avail. 9/16.
