History of the United States II / Unit 2 USH2 0164 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Bonanza Farms
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The idea
Bonanza farms of more than twenty thousand acres each, in Minnesota and the Dakotas, succeeded where individual homesteads often failed.
In practice
Machinery, capital and hired labour working land on a scale no family could match.
Where people slip
Economies of scale explain the difference. The Plains rewarded the large operation, not the independent farmer the Homestead Act imagined.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Unlocks
- Nothing yet depends on this.
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