AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



did not lend themselves readily to the purposes 

 of transportation. 



Both of these classes of English farmers came 

 to America. Both classes went to New England 

 and both classes went to Virginia. The first 

 class, the self-sufficing farmers, got along well in 

 New England. They learned to grow maize 

 and potatoes. They found plenty of fish in the 

 streams. Their old habits of building houses for 

 themselves, manufacturing their own clothing, 

 and producing and preparing for winter's use 

 abundant supplies of food, made them the natural 

 inhabitants of the isolated New England of that 

 time. 



But the commercial farmers were not so suc- 

 cessful in the North as were their less, pretentious 

 fellow countrymen. They sought diligently for 

 some agricultural product which could be trans- 

 ported to London with profit; for it was from 

 London that they could draw the comforts and 

 luxuries which they had learned to consume but 

 which they were unable, themselves, to produce. 

 As it was unprofitable in those early days to ship 

 grain to London except in years when the price 

 was abnormally high, and as no staple was found 

 which would bear shipment to Europe, commer- 

 cial agriculture was unable to play an important 

 role in New England. 



In the South, the commercial agriculturists met 

 with better success. There, as in New England, 



50 



