Chapter 9 Social Studies Study Guide
(Agricultural Changes in the Midwest)
Please review the following vocabulary terms:
1. Self-sufficient - doing everything necessary to take care of yourself
2. Dairies - a farm that produces milk and milk products
3. Reaper - a machine for cutting grain
4. Combine - a machine, pulled by horses, for cutting and threshing grain
5. Sod - a mixture of dirt and roots of grass
6. Canning - preserving food by cooking and sealing it in cans or jars
7. Agribusinesses - a large-scale farming enterprise
8. Fertilizers - a substance added to the soil to improve plant growth
9. Pesticides - a substance used on crops to kill insects and other pests
10. Maize - a tall plant that produces large cobs of sweet corn
11. Renewable Resource - something that renews itself, or re-grows, even as people use up the
original supply of it
Please become familiar with the information below explaining the changes in agriculture in the Midwest.
Farming in the Midwest in the 1800s:
 almost all Americans lived on a farm
 most farm work was done by hand, using simple iron tools
 farmers planted all of their crops by hand
 farm families grew almost all of their own food
 many farmers grew just enough food for their own families
Farming in the Midwest in the 1900s:
 farmers worked hard to be self-sufficient
 farmers raised large amounts of crops and great herds of animals
 the reaper helped farmers by cutting the time to harvest grain
 the steel plow was invented which could cut through prairie soil much easier than earlier plows
 the entire family helped out on the farm: the men, women and even children
 dairies depend on cows for their milk
Farming in the Midwest Today:
 fertilizers and pesticides helps farmers grow more food on less land
 the most important tool on the farm today is the tractor
 farmers today must work hard at their job, just like the farmers in the 1800s
 between 1800 and today, the number of acres of the average farm increased to about 450 acres
a farm
 most families give up farms because they cannot pay their bank loans
Reading Further Information:
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corn is grown on every continent except Antarctica
Mitchell, South Dakota is the “Corn Capital of the World”
more than half of the corn grown in the United States is used for animal feed
corn can be used for animal feed, cereal, fuel, cornstarch, corn sweeteners or dried corn
products
ethanol is a renewable resource because people can make more of it by growing more corn