In 1911 Harvard economics professor Thomas Nixon Carver published a textbook Principles of Rural Economics that undoubtedly encompassed the content of his course on agricutural economics first taught in 1903-04. Somewhat unusually the book is prefaced with an eight page bibliography. The eight question final exam for this semester course from 1905-06 is found below.
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From a previous year
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Course Enrollment
1905-06
Economics 23 2hf. Professor Carver. — Economics of Agriculture, with special reference to American Conditions.
Total 42: 4 Graduates, 10 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 14 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 2 Others.
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1904-1905, p. 73.
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ECONOMICS 23
Year-end Examination, 1905-06
- Describe the two principal stages in the development of commercial agriculture.
- Describe the methods by which a citizen could acquire a title to government land at the following dates: 1850, 1870, 1890.
- What are the chief advantages of large-scale farming and of small-scale farming? Which system has the United States government favored, and by what means?
- What are the advantages of diversified farming, and under what conditions is it practicable?
- What experiments are being carried on under the direction of the United States Department of Agriculture in the breeding of animals?
- Describe three types of farm management as practiced in the United States.
- Name, in the order of their value, the five leading crops of the United States, and if any of them are grown in special regions or belts, state approximately their limits.
- What are the principal factors tending, at the present time, to affect the character of the rural population of the United States?
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1906-07; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1906), p. 46.
Image Source: “The American farmer – where he has to sell, and where he has to buy,” print by Louis Dalrymple in Puck, v. 35, no. 910 (August 15, 1894). Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
Print shows Uncle Sam as an American farmer trying to sell his products labeled “Pork, Wheat, Butter, Beef, Oats”, and corn overseas where there is stiff “Open Competition” at the “Market of the World” represented by John Bull labeled “England” and “Germany, Russia, South America, [and] Australia”. In a vignette, Uncle Sam is shown at “The McKinley Home Market and High Prices” looking at the merchandise for sale, where all the items that he needs have been “Marked Up” 35% to 45%; McKinley offers him a new coat that has been “Marked Up 35%”.