Overview

During the nineteenth century the agricultural sciences flourished in the Western world. When the century began there was not one person who devoted a career to the scientific investigation of agriculture; by the century's end, however, at least two thousand scientists worked in one of the agricultural colleges, experiment stations, and laboratories devoted to the agricultural sciences found around the globe. In the course of one hundred years, scientific discoveries fundamentally reshaped the way farmers selected seed, fertilized fields, fed livestock, controlled pests, and processed foods. In an era of industrialization and urbanization, the application of science to agriculture contributed to the growing size, health, and wealth of many Western nations.

Background

For much of the nineteenth...