|
美国国父托马斯·杰斐逊认为，农民是美国民主的基础。为了执行他的民主计划，杰斐逊提出了美国矩形土地调查——俗称网格。根据该计划，测量员首先被派往俄亥俄州东部，指示将土地划分为六英里见方的盒子。然后他们被指示将这些较大的盒子分成较小的盒子，一英里见方，再分成四分之一部分，每个面积为 160 英亩，被认为是适合单个农场的大小。1785 年，国会通过了网格成为法律，从那时起，同样的棋盘图案在西方被蚀刻——这是世界历史上使景观合理化的最深远的尝试之一。 网格是一种文化的外在表达，不仅与民主结合，而且与市场和交换结合。它将帮助该国迅速定居，将数百万美国人变成独立的土地所有者，同时将土地本身——其不同的地形、土壤和水条件——变成一种商品，一套统一的盒子很容易买到并出售。但电网只是西方农田商业化的第一步。 一旦农民购买了土地，他们就需要耕种现有的植被。在几千年前冰川留下的富含有机物的深厚土壤上茁壮成长的草最初是一个挑战。事实证明，带有铁边的木犁几乎毫无用处。钢犁的发展和传播——由 1837 年由 llinois 铁匠约翰迪尔发明——使耕作成功。代替原生植被，农民种植玉米和小麦，驯化在单一文化环境中生长最好的草种，即在田地中自行生长。这些作物往往生长迅速，将碳水化合物储存在种子中。由于面包是美国人饮食的主要组成部分，小麦最终将成为西方的主要经济作物。世界上一些英亩和英亩的土地' 在定居初期，农民种植了多种谷物，包括小麦、玉米、燕麦、黑麦和大麦。然而，随着商业农业在铁路运输改善的帮助下迅速发展，农民越来越专业化。大部分谷物最终流向了东北部，到 1840 年代，那里的人口增长已经超过了当地农业经济的供应能力。实际上，西方过剩的土地财富为更远东的工业发展提供了保障。 The railroads not only delivered the products of the rich soils of the Western grasslands into the stomachs of Easterners, they also changed the meaning of the crops themselves. With waterborne transportation, farmers put their grain into sacks so they could easily be loaded into the irregularly shaped holds of steamboats. The advent of the railroads and steam-powered grain elevators (first developed in 1842) spurred farmers to eliminate the sack altogether. Now grain would move like a stream of water, making its journey to market with the aid of a mechanical device that loaded all the wheat from a particular area into one large grain car. Sacks had preserved the identity of each load of grain. With the new technology, however, grain from different farms was mixed together and sorted by grade. The Chicago Board of Trade (established in 1 848) divided wheat into three categories- spring, white winter, and red winter- -applying quality standards to each type. Wheat was turned into an abstract commodity, with ownership over the grain diverging from the physical product itself. By the 1860s, a futures market in grain had even emerged in Chicago. It was now possible to enter into a contract to purchase or sell grain at a particular price. What was being marketed here was not the physical grain itself so much as an abstraction, the right to trade something that may not even have been grown yet.
|
|
|
