The Problem: Depleted Soil
By the time Carver arrived at Tuskegee in 1896, decades of continuous cotton monoculture had devastated Southern soils. Cotton is a "heavy feeder" that depletes nitrogen and other nutrients from the soil, leaving it increasingly infertile.
Many Southern farmers were trapped in a cycle of poverty, growing cotton on exhausted land that produced smaller yields each year.
Carver's Solution: Crop Rotation
Carver championed crop rotation - alternating cotton with nitrogen-fixing plants like peanuts, soybeans, and sweet potatoes. These legumes have bacteria in their root nodules that convert atmospheric nitrogen into soil nutrients.
The Rotation Cycle
Peanuts/Legumes
(Adds nitrogen)
Cotton
(Uses nitrogen)
Sweet Potatoes
(Different nutrients)
This cycle restores soil health while providing farmers with diverse, marketable crops.
Creating Demand for New Crops
The challenge was that farmers knew how to sell cotton, but not peanuts or sweet potatoes. Carver's genius was in solving both problems:
- Teaching crop rotation to restore soil fertility
- Developing 300+ peanut products to create market demand
- Developing 118 sweet potato products to diversify income
- Publishing practical bulletins farmers could use
- Creating the Jesup Wagon to bring education to rural areas
The Impact
Carver's crop rotation methods helped transform Southern agriculture:
- Restored fertility to millions of acres of depleted farmland
- Diversified farm income beyond cotton dependency
- Helped establish peanuts as a major commercial crop
- Laid groundwork for modern sustainable farming practices