首页
登录
职称英语
Agricultural Society in Eighteenth-Century British AmericaP1: Throughout the co
Agricultural Society in Eighteenth-Century British AmericaP1: Throughout the co
游客
2025-02-04
23
管理
问题
Agricultural Society in Eighteenth-Century British America
P1: Throughout the colonial period, most Northerners, especially New Englanders, depended on the land for a livelihood, although a living had literally to be wrested from the earth. Community lands were used for grazing and logging (people could petition the town for the right to cut wood). Agriculture was the predominant occupation, and what industrial and commercial activity there was revolved almost entirely around materials extracted from the land, the forests, and the ocean.
P2: At the end of the eighteenth century, approximately 90 percent of all Americans earned a major portion of their living by farming. Generally, high ratios of land and other natural resources to labor generated exceptionally high levels of output per worker in the colonies. Located between the Potomac and the Hudson rivers, the Middle Colonies were, unlike New England, fertile and readily tillable, and therefore enjoyed a comparative advantage in the production of grains and other foodstuffs. Most production in the New World was for the colonists’ own consumption, but sizable proportions of colonial goods and services were produced for commercial exchange. In time, New England colonists had tapped into a sprawling Atlantic trade network that connected them to the English homeland as well as the West African Slave Coast, the Caribbean’s plantation islands, and the Iberian Peninsula.
P3: In the North, land was seemingly limitless in extent and therefore not highly priced, and almost every colonist wanted to be a landholder. The widespread ownership of land distinguished farming society in Colonial America from every other agricultural region of the Western world. Equal access to land ownership in this early period made it possible for most men other than indentured servants to purchase or inherit a farm of at least 50 acres. The North was developed as a rigidly hierarchical society in which status was determined by or at least strongly correlated with the extent to which one owned, controlled, or labored on land.
P4: The eighteenth century witnessed a sharp rise in population, which left many faced with the harsh reality of an increasingly limited supply of land; this was especially true in New England, where farms inherited from prior generations could not be divided and subdivided indefinitely . An example of this principle in action was the life of Edward Richards in Dedham, Massachusetts , a proprietor of the town, who had significant civic responsibilities, including road-building, militia duty, and fence-viewing, and who received parcels of land in return for his investment and work. By 1653, he owned over 55 acres and ranked twelfth of 78 property owners in terms of the size of his holdings. Eventually, the Richards family controlled several hundred acres of land, enough for Nathaniel Richards, Edward’s son, to give 80-acre farms to two sons while a third retained the central farm after his death. In this way, the average farm would shrink by two thirds in a century.
P5: The decreasing fertility of the soil compounded the problem of dwindling farm size in New England. When land had been plentiful, farmers had planted crops in the same field for three years and then let it lie fallow in pasture seven years or more until it regained its fertility. On the smaller farms of the eighteenth century, however, farmers reduced fallow time to only a year or two. Such intense use of the soil reduced crop yields, forcing farmers to plow marginal land or shift to livestock production.
P6: Under these circumstances, those families who were less well-off naturally struggled to make ends meet farming what little land they had. The diminishing size and productivity of family farms forced many New Englanders to move to the frontier or out of the area altogether in the eighteenth century. Vital as the agriculture of New England was to the people of the area, it constituted a relatively insignificant portion of the region’s total commercial output for sale (its destiny lay in another kind of economic endeavor). In addition, the growing season was much shorter in the North, and the cultivation of cereal crops required incessant labor only during spring planting and autumn harvesting; and so, from a very early date, many New Englanders combined farming with other intermittent work, such as clock-making, shoe-making, carpentry, and weaving, thereby enabling themselves to live better lives than they would have had they been confined to the resources of their own farms. Homecrafts and skilled trades of all varieties were common features of rural life in all the colonies, but especially in New England.
P6: Under these circumstances, those families who were less well-off naturally struggled to make ends meet farming what little land they had. ■ The diminishing size and productivity of family farms forced many New Englanders to move to the frontier or out of the area altogether in the eighteenth century. ■ Vital as the agriculture of New England was to the people of the area, it constituted a relatively insignificant portion of the region’s total commercial output for sale ■ (its destiny lay in another kind of economic endeavor). ■ In addition, the growing season was much shorter in the North, and the cultivation of cereal crops required incessant labor only during spring planting and autumn harvesting; and so, from a very early date, many New Englanders combined farming with other intermittent work, such as clock-making, shoe-making, carpentry, and weaving, thereby enabling themselves to live better lives than they would have had they been confined to the resources of their own farms. Homecrafts and skilled trades of all varieties were common features of rural life in all the colonies, but especially in New England. [br] According to paragraph 3, in what way did farming society in the northern colonies differ from farming societies in the rest of the Western world?
选项
A、The differences between social classes were much greater.
B、People lived much closer together.
C、The proportion of land owners was much higher.
D、Many more families had servants.
答案
C
解析
【事实信息题】文中第2句提到北方的农耕社会与西方世界不同的地方在于北方有更多人拥有土地。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3943189.html
相关试题推荐
ThefoodcooperativesocietyinBrownUniversityhopestowelcomemorestudents
ThelackofprintingregulationsandtheunenforceabiliyofBritishcopy
ThefoodcooperativesocietyinBrownUniversityhopestowelcomemorestudents
[img]2012q1/ct_etoefm_etoefspeakb_1915_20121[/img]PlantPathologySocietyi
[img]2014m3s/ct_etoefm_etoefwritea_0449_20138[/img]Whatoursocietysuffers
AshecollectedfossilsfromstratathroughoutEngland,Smithbegantoseet
In1831whenSmithwasfinallyrecognizedbytheGeologicalSocietyofLondo
By1800morethanathousandsteamengineswereinuseintheBritishIsles,
Itisgenerallyagreedthatsocietybenefitsfromtheworkofitsmembers.C
"HewWomenoftheIceAge"Thestatusofwomeninasocietydependsinlarge
随机试题
Asoccerreferee(36)______forscoringagoalwhiletakingchargeforagam
RobertBrowning’sMyLastDuchessiscomposedintheformofa(n)A、dramaticmono
Dr.ThomasStarzl,likeallthepioneersoforgantransplant,hadtolearnt
使用IE浏览器浏览网页时,出于安全的考虑,需要禁止执行JavaScript,方法
A.维生素B B.维生素B C.维生素PP D.叶酸 E.泛酸参与一碳单
面颊部有短暂的反复发作的剧痛,检查时除"触发点"外无阳性体征。常见于A.特发性面
一个儿童在看到别人有一顶和他相同的帽子时说:“这顶帽子是我的。”根据皮亚杰的认知
甲公司与乙公司因买卖合同纠纷进行诉讼,甲认为原审法院所作的判决有错误,应当如何申
劳动法律关系的客体一般表现为()。A.一定的行为和财物 B.物、精神财
(2020年真题)电气照明导线连接方式,除饺接外还包括()。A.压接 B
最新回复
(
0
)