<P> Wheat farmers have always produced a surplus for export . The exports run a small - scale until the 1860s, when bad crops in Europe, and lower prices due to cheap railroads and ocean transport, opened the European markets . The British in particular depended on American wheat during the 1860s for a fourth of their food supply . By 1880, 150,000,000 bushels were exported to the value of $190,000,000 . World War I saw large numbers of young European farmers conscripted into the army, so some Allied countries, particularly France and Italy depended on American shipments, which ranged from 100,000,000 to 260,000,000 bushels a year . American farmers reacted to the heavy demand and high prices by expanding their production, many taking out mortgages to buy out their neighbors farms . This led to a large surplus in the 1920s . The resulting low prices prompted growers to seek government support of prices, first through the McNary - Haugen bills, which failed in Congress, and later in the New Deal through the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 and its many versions . </P> <P> World War II brought an enormous expansion of production, topping off at a billion bushels in 1944 . During the war and after large - scale wheat and flour exports were part of Lend Lease and the foreign assistance programs . In 1966 exports reached 860 million bushels of which 570 million were given away as food aid . A major drought in the Soviet Union in 1972 led to the sale of 390 million bushels and an agreement was assigned in 1975 under the détente policy to supply the Soviets with grain over a five - year period . </P> <P> By 1900 private grain exchanges settled the daily prices for North American wheat . Santon (2010) explains how the AAA programs set wheat prices in the U.S. after 1933, and the Canadians established a wheat board to do the same there . The Canadian government required prairie farmers to deliver all their grain to the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), a single - selling - desk agency that supplanted private wheat marketing in western Canada . Meanwhile, the United States government subsidized farm incomes with domestic - use taxes and import tariffs, but otherwise preserved private wheat marketing . </P> <P> In the colonial era, small amounts high quality long - staple cotton was produced in the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina . Inland, only short - staple cotton could be grown but it was full of seeds and very hard to process into fiber . The invention of the cotton gin in the late 1790s for the first time made short - staple cotton usable . It was generally produced on plantations ranging from South Carolina westward, with the work done by black slaves . Simultaneously, the rapid growth of the industrial revolution in Britain, focused on textiles, created a major demand for the fiber . Cotton quickly exhausts the soil, so planters used their large profits to buy fresh land to the west, and purchase more slaves from the border states to operate their new plantations . After 1810, the emerging textile mills in New England also produced a heavy demand . By 1820, over 250,000 bales (of 500 pounds each) were exported to Europe, with a value of $22 million . By 1840, exports reached 1.5 million bales valued at $64 million, two thirds of all American exports . Cotton prices kept going up as the South remained the main supplier in the world . In 1860, the US shipped 3.5 million bales worth $192 million . The mixture of a Mexican strand with existing strands of cotton led cotton bolls to open wide like a flat hand at harvest, which dramatically raised the amount of cotton that could be picked per day . </P>

When did mass agricultural practices begin in north america