icans at least mastered
the art of feeding themselves.

European technology used animals for draft and employed plows, harrows,
and similar implements. This technology fit European crops better than
it fit American crops. Thus, European implements and draft animals did
not appear until comparatively late. As long as they depended chiefly on
Indian crops, Europeans simply substituted iron hoes for stone hoes, and
iron axes for stone axes. But methods such as girdling, slash and burn,
and the rest, came almost directly from Indian technology. The Pilgrims
of Plymouth Plantation went 12 years without a plow; Virginians went
almost as long. The hoe of corn culture served well enough to keep men
alive. Hunting and fishing, of course, supplemented the food supply, as
it did for the Indians.

From north to south the story was largely the same in the 17th century.
Everywhere the new Americans pursued a subsistence agriculture which
supported some other major economic activity. Pennsylvania developed
possibly the most flourishing subsistence farming. The commercial
production of tobacco, an American crop with American methods and uses,
began early in Virginia and Maryland. This specialty developed
commercially almost exclusively in the upper South. Farmers and planters
of the lower South had hesitantly begun rice culture, but as the 17th
century ended men in the Carolinas still found hides and furs the most
rewarding commodities. Meanwhile, rapid changes took place in the
European metropolitan centers, and in the West Indian islands. The
growth of population in both places created consumers for more and
cheaper food. Markets for American foods definitely began to increase as
the 18th century got under way.

Europeans, of course, primarily wanted European foods rather than exotic
Indian crops. The foods also had to be comparatively nonperishable and
easily transported. Grains, particularly wheat, and processed meat
(hams, salt pork, and such) especially met European preferences.
Commercial production of these commodities compelled American farmers to
embrace the best European technology insofar as that technology fit the
American scene. The plants, animals, methods, and tools all derived from
Europe. Contrary to a common European view at the time, the immigrants
did not bring the worst available methods to the New World. Nor did the
Americans allow any deterioration of stock or plants without good
economic reasons.

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