President Thomas Jefferson encouraged the expansion and exploration of America through the Louisiana Purchase expedition and the Lewis and Clark expedition. He believed that America was the land of freedom and opportunity, and that the land itself was the greatest opportunity. Himself a plantation owner and a Southerner, it is no wonder that Jefferson’s Agrarian Specimen in 1787 praised it, given that there had been many signs of an agricultural economy in the previous several decades, especially in the South and Midwest. Thomas Jefferson had enough business and agricultural sense to recognize and direct the possibilities of agriculture for the economic future of the United States of America. .
As a Virginian, Thomas Jefferson supported the agrarian ideal no doubt offered by exposure to successful southern agriculture. Tobacco attracted southern settlers as a cash crop for many years. South Carolina only gives me gold to grow rice. Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina were the only places from Quebec to the West Indies where tobacco was cultivated. rather than private use. He used his own experience as a servant of a plantation owner and therefore understood the costs of operating a plantation – especially since the neoclassical buildings of the Monticelli mansion put him in debt – as well as the constraints of the seasons, the climate and the soil. Medieval only industrial work look at the cities of the north and see the pollution, population, disease will fully convince themselves that the ideal is agrarian America’s economic future.
Jefferson spoke of the immensity of land available to Americans, unlike that available to Europeans, which would be necessary for manufacturing. He knew which land and climate were most beneficial to which crops, so he wrote his testimony about the diversion of tobacco cultivation, developing tobacco in Mississippi and Georgia, where the climate and soil were more receptive than Virginia and Maryland, where it was more profitable to grow wheat. Agriculture, guided by conscience, supports not only the riches, but also the workers and the land. Since dividing the population between agriculture and manufacturing would mean that half of the population of the North American world would be missing from the opportunity, if, focusing on agriculture, it would mean a variety of crops in a variety of climates to produce the best income, maintaining fertility. land, the advantage of the greatest gift, the immensity offered by America, feeds the laborers and works the multitude of animals both for food and for the land. Any American-made goods could easily be obtained from a European factory. Jefferson believed that the workers were God’s chosen people, and that God had blessed America with vast amounts of the best soil. He perceived the virtues of agriculture, as far as industry predominates, and tends to the vices first of all. In a country full of open spaces timely bursting of the harvest, it seemed that the waste covered the perfectly good land. workshop The Agrarian Ideal was not so appealing from someone else, but coming from a talented and experienced man like Thomas Jefferson, with a level head and economic sense, the Agrarian Ideal brought to the United States a prosperous agricultural economy.
Benjamin Henry Latrobe on Polluted Water in Philadelphia, 1798. Major Problems in South Carolina Rice Productions, 1761. Major American Problems in Environmental History . Merchant, Carolyn. Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
‘Thomas Jefferson Discusses the Nature of Blacks and Finished Soils, 1787’. Major Issues in American Environmental History. Merchant, Carolyn. Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
‘Thomas Jefferson exemplifies the agrarian model, 1787’. Major Issues in American Environmental History. Merchant, Carolyn. Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
‘The Traveler Describes’ the Cult of Tobacco, 1775. Major Issues in American Environmental History. Merchant, Carolyn. Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
‘Virginis Colonis Discover Tobacco, 1614-1617’. Major Issues in American Environmental History. Merchant, Carolyn. Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
