86 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



outbreak of the Civil War the entire acreage in cotton was 

 less than the geographical area of South Carolina. 1 



Causes of the transformation. The transformation which took 

 place in the agriculture of the North was due to several causes, 

 any one of which might be called epoch making. The first was 

 the railroad. At the beginning of this period there were none. 

 By 1860 there were 30,000 miles in operation and they had 

 penetrated every state east of the Missouri River. 



While the markets of the world were brought nearer to the 

 Western farms by the building of the railroads, the markets them- 

 selves were growing larger. The building of the factory towns 

 of New England called for larger supplies of food. In 1846 

 the English Corn Laws were repealed, though the repeal did not 

 go into effect until 1 849, when American foodstuffs began to be 

 admitted to that country free of duty. The great Irish potato 

 famine began in 1846. The continent of Europe was disturbed 

 by the revolutions of 1848 and by the Crimean War of 1854. 

 Finally, beginning with 1 849 and lasting through the fifties, the 

 gold fields of California and Australia were pouring a flood of 

 new gold into the money markets of the world to stimulate 

 prices, much as they have again been stimulated since 1897. 



Another set of causes were at work in the form of a more lib- 

 eral land policy. As we have already seen, the Preemption Act 

 of 1841 favored actual settlers rather than land speculators. The 

 famines and political disturbances of Europe sent a tidal wave 

 of immigrants hither, and many of them found their way to the 

 Western lands and took advantage of the Preemption Act. 



The prairies. Another factor of great importance was the 

 development of prairie farming. At the beginning of this period 

 the vanguard of the westward-moving army of settlers was just 

 emerging from the great primeval forest, which covered the 



1 For a fuller account see Hammond, " The Cotton Industry," Publications 

 of the American Association (New Series), 1899, Vol. I. 



