Yes, farms will be in areas that can sustain farms, that is a tautology, not an insight. That’s why the correlation breaks down. If farms = slavery = democratic majority, then all agricultural areas in the US would be democratic. They are not. It’s vulgar materialism. Someone is working backwards from the conclusion and being sloppy with the details.
We’re pattern seeking creatures. Someone created a pattern for us to follow. Because the pattern seems to follow in the correct order, we accept the pattern. But the correlations are ultimately specious. The data points are picked with purpose. The map at the end doesn’t make sense if you consider all the actual farmland in Alabama. But the author isn’t trying to be accurate, they’re trying to make a point about history. But their point isn’t proved by the thing they’re using to make it.
Yes, we are products of history and our environment. This infographic doesn’t really do a good job of saying that though. It’s just presents wrong information in a way that makes people draw a simplistic conclusion that can be construed as scientific history.
The point is that plantations lead to large farms, because in many cases the land holders kept the land and switched to sharecropping instead of slavery. I would be curious to see the data but I suspect that the smaller northern farms are newer and were perhaps not viable until fertilizers.
There are more farms in the north though.
https://alabamamaps.ua.edu/contemporarymaps/alabama/agriculture/number_farms_07.jpg
Yes, farms will be in areas that can sustain farms, that is a tautology, not an insight. That’s why the correlation breaks down. If farms = slavery = democratic majority, then all agricultural areas in the US would be democratic. They are not. It’s vulgar materialism. Someone is working backwards from the conclusion and being sloppy with the details.
We’re pattern seeking creatures. Someone created a pattern for us to follow. Because the pattern seems to follow in the correct order, we accept the pattern. But the correlations are ultimately specious. The data points are picked with purpose. The map at the end doesn’t make sense if you consider all the actual farmland in Alabama. But the author isn’t trying to be accurate, they’re trying to make a point about history. But their point isn’t proved by the thing they’re using to make it.
Yes, we are products of history and our environment. This infographic doesn’t really do a good job of saying that though. It’s just presents wrong information in a way that makes people draw a simplistic conclusion that can be construed as scientific history.
The point is that plantations lead to large farms, because in many cases the land holders kept the land and switched to sharecropping instead of slavery. I would be curious to see the data but I suspect that the smaller northern farms are newer and were perhaps not viable until fertilizers.