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The American West, c1835–c1895

Changes in farming, the cattle industry and settlement

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 2 booklet P

Overview

Turkey Red wheat, machinery and wind pumps, farming as a business, the winter of 1886–87 and the end of the open range, the cowboy's fate, the Exodusters, the Oklahoma Land Rush and the closed frontier.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Which wheat transformed Plains farming after the 1870s, and who introduced it?

Key term

How did new machinery change the harvest on the Plains?

Key term

How did mass-produced wind pumps change what land could be farmed?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Which wheat transformed Plains farming after the 1870s, and who introduced it?

    Model answer

    Turkey Red, a hard winter wheat brought from Russia by Mennonite settlers, which withstood drought and cold far better than earlier varieties.

  2. 2

    How did new machinery change the harvest?

    Model answer

    Mechanical reapers, binders and steam threshers let one family work hundreds of acres that would once have needed a crowd of labourers.

  3. 3

    How did mass-produced wind pumps change what land could be farmed?

    Model answer

    Cheap steel pumps drew water from far deeper wells, so families could farm land with no stream or spring on it at all.

  4. 4

    Why did farms on the Plains grow larger after 1876?

    Model answer

    160 acres could not feed a family on dry land, so those who succeeded bought out neighbours who had failed and later laws allowed bigger claims.

  5. 5

    In what sense had Plains farming become a business by the 1890s?

    Model answer

    Families grew wheat and maize to sell in eastern and European markets, so their living depended on world prices, freight charges and loans.

  6. 6

    Why was the open range already in trouble before the winter of 1886–87?

    Model answer

    Too many cattle had been put on the grass, beef prices were falling, and the summer of 1886 was hot and dry so the animals went into winter weak.

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