In The Law of the Land John Opie argues that American agriculture has been and still is controlled by erroneous and harmful historical myths. Contrary to public opinion and textbook gospel, public land policy has often worked against the independent family farmer. The public land survey and sales system, going back to 1785 and covering the western two-thirds of the United States, was supposed to be the most equitable means of making land available to small farmers. Instead, this system encouraged the transfer of land into the hands of those involved primarily in speculation and the amassing of huge profits. The small, cash-poor farmer was the loser, but was still touted as the bulwark of private enterprise.

The small farmer's position was further weakened by other systems of public land distribution that favored the railroads, speculators, and state and territorial claims, to cite some examples. The Law of the Land reveals the extent ot which government actions undermined or competed with the old survey and sale system. Ironically, only major federal interventions, including the Reclamation Act in 1902 and the formation of the Soil Conservation Service in 1935, could help the independent farmer. Opie turns his attention to new programs for the protection of farmland, which are often directed toward correction or even removal of the two-hundred-year-old land survey system and its basis in private property rights. He discusses new priorities and new planning that includes farmland preserves and controlled used and development through zoning and tax plans. The Law of the Land ends on a note of urgency. The survival of the independent family farm is at stake and a good deal more.

A professor of history at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, John Opie is also director of the Center for Technology Studies and founding editor of Environmental History Review. His other publications include Ogallala: Water for a Dry Land (Nebraska 1993).

"This book provides fascinating insights into how present-day American land legislation has evolved. In doing so the author identifies the many problems that the family farmer has had to face over the past two centuries at the hands of the weather, unstable product prices, and corrupt and venal politicians."—Journal of Agricultural Economics

"A provocative, learned, polemical contribution to the debate on the nature of the farm problem and the means to solve it. Throughout our history, Opie, a historian, convincingly argues, contradictory goals have produced contradictory policies that are the sources of our current problems."—Science

"This important volume offers a reinterpretation of public lands history as it relates to contemporary farm policy. . . . [Opie's] signal contribution is to examine and evaluate the many policy strands of a twentieth-century safety net designed by Congress to sustain the family farm."—Journal of American History

"Bright, passionate, and entirely convincing."—Journal of Rural Studies

"The Law of the Land has made a significant contribution to agricultural and public policy history by pointing out that American ideals have shaped policies and assigned roles that have often left farmers and farmland vulnerable."—Public Historian

"The five years that have passed since this book was first published have been enough to conclude that John Opie can reconstruct the past and predict the future. . . . Many of the problems he foresaw have come to pass and some of the solutions he discussed have been adopted. . . . Anyone interested in the basic environment will find that this volume gives a clear picture of how we got to where we are today in the use and misuse of natural resources. . ."—Environmental History Review