Gale Encyclopedia of American Law Volume 1 P20 fully illuminates today's leading cases, major statutes, legal terms and concepts, notable persons involved with the law, important documents and more. Legal issues are fully discussed in easy-to-understand language, including such high-profile topics as the Americans with Disabilities Act, capital punishment, domestic violence, gay and lesbian rights, physician-assisted suicide and thousands more. | 178 AGRICULTURAL LAW As farm foreclosures became commonplace during the Great Depression some farmers resorted to violence to try to keep their property. This image shows Iowa National Guard members armed with rifles ready to put down any disturbance during an auction in Crawford County in 1933. FDR LIBRARY repealed 1976 . This act encouraged the westward expansion of European Americans by selling federally owned lands for farming. Another method of sale was land debt a financial arrangement in which farmers agreed to pay the federal government a certain amount from their yearly profits in exchange for the land. Congress passed subsequent legislation concerning land ownership for farming purposes but federal lands were eventually exhausted and in 1976 these late-nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century acts became unnecessary and were repealed. The colonial and pioneer families who practiced farming generally raised a variety of animals and crops depending on what the soil would yield. This seminal arrangement came to be known as the family farm. The family farm community was rich in resources derived from land not money and from this unique prosperity grew a lifestyle with a status all its own. Expendable income was not a priority for farm families. The values attached to their way of life placed a higher premium on plentiful food vast land ownership and a spiritual fulfillment derived from farming. Farmwork was difficult and the farmer was different from the rest of society it was against this backdrop that federal and state legislators began to work when addressing the pressing issues that farmers would come to face. The years following the Civil War were especially fruitful for farming communities. world war I saw an increase in the value of farm products and in the Roaring Twenties robust prices were maintained by a general public capable of buying food and clothing. However in the months before the stock market crash of October 1929 the value of farmland and .
