Ribbon Farm
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Ribbon farms (also known as strip farms, river lots, long-lot farms, or just long lots) are long, narrow land divisions for farming, usually lined up along a waterway. In some instances, they line a road.


Background

Ribbon or strip farms were prevalent in diverse areas of the world along rivers; locations where these farms appear include in parts of Ireland, Central Europe (particularly in Germany and Poland), West Africa,
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, Brazil, and Chile. In the United States and Canada, ribbon farms are found in various places settled by the French, particularly along the
Saint Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (, ) is a large international river in the middle latitudes of North America connecting the Great Lakes to the North Atlantic Ocean. Its waters flow in a northeasterly direction from Lake Ontario to the Gulf of St. Lawrenc ...
, the Great Lakes, and the
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and tributaries, and parts of Louisiana. Some sections of the American Southwest, particularly
Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...
, also had ribbon farms laid out. Typical Polish examples are Zawoja and Sułoszowa, which extend over a length of 18 and 9 km respectively It is likely that platting farms in ribbon lots arose independently in various parts of the world. However, the ribbon farms scattered through the United States probably derive from the European model. The origin of the ribbon farm in Europe is unclear, but the first recorded appearance of these types of farms was in Germany in the ninth to eleventh century. These early German long lots were cut through forests or marshes, rather than along rivers, allowing for clustering of houses along a central road. From Germany, the pattern spread, notably to western
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, where forest, marsh, and river long lots were well-established by the time the French began colonizing the Americas. By the 1630s, the long-lot pattern had been imported to the New World and established along the St Lawrence Seaway as the French seigneurial system. From there, the ribbon farm plan situated along rivers was carried to other parts of the French colonies, and diffused into some parts of the Spanish colonies.


Description

The size of ribbon farms can vary from lot to lot and from place to place. In
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, these lots could be or more long and only wide. Near
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, the ribbon farms were about wide and up to long. In Texas, lots could be as small as in area, or as large as . Farmers of ribbon farms typically, although not universally, built houses on the farm along the river such that the houses on a series of ribbon farms were located near each other.


Advantages

In areas where rivers provided the main form of transportation, the ribbon farm layout gave multiple landowners access to the waterway. In addition, the long lots increased variation in soil and drainage within one lot, and facilitated plowing by minimizing the number of times oxen teams needed to be turned. Where farmers lived on their lots (rather than in a central village), the ribbon farm fostered communication and socialization, with houses clustered at the ends of the lots. The ribbon farm also strikes an economic balance, where houses are relatively close together and can be easily and economically accessed, yet the farmers need not spend excessive travel time to reach their fields some distance from a central village. Finally, in those places in the New World where ribbon farms were platted, the division of land into long rectangles was relatively easy to survey and establish boundaries.


Disadvantage

One disadvantage was that the agricultural land of a single farmer was awkwardly spread out, often over two or more linear miles, necessitating a long travel time to reach rear parts of the lot. However, this disadvantage was generally no more than would have been experienced by peasant farmers living in a central village and walking to their fields.


See also

*
Open field system The open-field system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe during the Middle Ages and lasted into the 20th century in Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Each manor or village had two or three large fields, usually several hundred acr ...
*
Seigneurial system of New France The manorial system of New France, known as the seigneurial system (, ), was the semi-feudal system of land tenure used in the North American French colonial empire. Economic historians have attributed the wealth gap between Quebec and other pa ...
* Strip farming * Strip farming in Norway *
Linear settlement A linear settlement is a (normally small to medium-sized) settlement or group of buildings that is formed in a long line. Many of these settlements are formed along a transport route, such as a road, river, or canal. Others form due to physical r ...


References

{{Reflist Farms by type Surveying Agricultural land