AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



country gentlemen of England. The small 

 farmers were, sooner or later, crowded out of tide- 

 water Virginia. 



In the North the self-sufficing economy re- 

 mained important for a long time. The small 

 farmers from New England, New York, and 

 Pennsylvania gradually moved westward, and it 

 was the same conditions which made them suc- 

 cessful in the early settlement of the North that 

 fitted them for the life of the pioneer. Since the 

 days of railways, new countries can be settled 

 successfully by commercial agriculturists, but it 

 was only yesterday that the self-sufficing pioneer 

 was an important factor in the development of 

 the resources of the United States. 



The self-sufficing pioneer farmer was free 

 from the power of trusts and corporations, but 

 his life was full of hardships such as few farmers 

 would now willingly endure. The following 

 quotation, descriptive of the life of a pioneer 

 family during their first year in their new home 

 in western Pennsylvania, in 1773, sets forth the 

 hardships of these pioneers in a very pathetic 

 manner. "For six weeks we had to live without 

 bread. The lean venison and the breast of the 

 wild turkey, we were taught to call bread. The 

 flesh of the bear was denominated meat. This 

 artifice did not succeed very well, after living in 

 this way for some time we became sickly, the 

 stomach seemed to be always empty, and tor- 



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