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The rapid growth of population and the expansion of the frontier opened up large numbers of new farms, and clearing the land was a major preoccupation of farmers. After 1800, cotton became the chief crop in southern plantations, and the chief American export.
- Mary Bellis
- Agricultural Advances in the United States, 1775–1889.
- 1776–1800. During the latter part of the 18th century, farmers relied on oxen and horses to power crude wooden plows. All sowing was accomplished using a hand-held hoe, reaping of hay and grain with a sickle, and threshing with a flail.
- 1800–1830. Inventions during the early decades of the 19th century were aimed at automation and preservation. 1800–1830—The era of turnpike building (toll roads) improved communication and commerce between settlements.
- The 1830s. By the 1830s, about 250-300 labor-hours were required to produce 100 bushels (5 acres) of wheat using a walking plow, brush harrow, hand broadcast of seed, sickle, and flail.
The United States began as a largely rural nation, with most people living on farms or in small towns and villages. While the rural population continued to grow in the late 1800s, the urban population was growing much more rapidly. Still, a majority of Americans lived in rural areas in 1900.
In 1880, America’s population passed the fifty million mark. 23 million Americans were farmers, and although the number of farmers was still growing, the farm population was growing slower than the non-farm population and for the first time less than half of working Americans were farmers.
After 1800, the primary market for agricultural products shifted from overseas ports to cities in the United States. Growing urban populations created an ever-increasing demand, not only for standard products like breadstuffs and meat, but for new ones like pears and brooms.
By the beginning of the new century, scientists throughout the United States were at work on a wide variety of agricultural projects. Ironically, the federal policy that enabled farmers to increase yields ultimately generated vast supplies which drove market prices down -- and disheartened farmers.
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Many of the American Founders were farmers – and the best of them like Washington and Thomas Jefferson were serious researchers on agronomy. Historian Richard Norton Smith wrote of Washington: “By personal definition he was a farmer, not a planter, and a scientific farmer at that.
