'… [there is] much to admire in what Olmstead and Rhode have done and - almost as importantly - how they have done it … generating new questions in a subject area that has for too long lain fallow.' The British Journal for the History of Science
1. Introduction; 2. The red queen and the hard reds: productivity growth in American wheat, 1800–1940; 3. Corn: America's crop; 4. Cotton: variety innovation and the making of king cotton; 5. Weevils, worms, and wilts: the red queen's cotton playground; 6. The other revolution in the cotton economy: cotton's revival in the twentieth century; 7. That 'stinking weed of America': the evolution of tobacco production; 8. California: creating a cornucopia; 9. Livestock in the farm economy; 10. Defining and redesigning America's livestock; 11. Nature's perfect food: inventing the modern dairy industry; 12. Draft power; 13. Conclusion: tying it together.