Historians have not been generous in judging the presidency of John Quincy Adams. Those who have most conspicuously upheld Adams's fame have, at the same time, virtually ignored his service in the White House. Critics, on the other hand, have described his administration as a failure, founded upon "bargain and corruption" and marked by exclusion of the United States from the British West Indian trade, the ineffectiveness of its efforts to promote strong Pan-American relationships, and the enactment of the "tariff of abominations." Some analysts have even argued that it generated the...

Grandiose plans for land retirement and expanded irrigation have been frequently proposed for the northern Great Plains, but they have not significantly affected agricultural practices in the region.

Those major readjustments to farming methods that did occur in the region evolved out of local initiative in response to drought and depression during the 1920s. With some refinements but few amendments, procedures remain basically the same today.

In Dry Farming in the Northern Great Plains, Mary Hargreaves reviews the changes in agricultural technology and farm management through...