Antitrust Status of Farmer Cooperatives: - USDA Rural Development ...

abundance west of the Appalachians to move east and finished
products to move west at much greater speed and at much lower cost
than was possible on roads or canals. Producer prices were able to
increase at the same time consumer prices decreased. Specialized
production in areas with a comparative advantage became prevalent as
competition between producers in previously distant markets increased.
The Constitution had created the possibility of a great "common
market" throughout the United States. The railroads made it a reality.
THE FARMERS MOVE WEST
Agriculture was the dominant force in our economy before the
Civil War. Two events in the 1790s began a period of remarkable
growth in agricultural production.
One was Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin in 1793. This
permitted rapid growth in the production of short-staple upland cotton
as a high-profit, alternative crop to tobacco in the South.
The second was the migration of people from the coastal
communities in the Middle Atlantic and New England regions to
settlements in western and northern "frontiers" like Ohio, Kentucky,
and Illinois. These people found satisfaction as independent family
farmers working the cheap and fertile land that seemed inexhaustible.
In the early 1840s, settlers began moving west, following the
Oregon Trail to the Pacific Northwest. They found favorable
conditions for growing wheat in eastern Washington and fruit from the
Willamette Valley to Puget Sound. But they remained isolated and
devoid of economic or political support for many years as the country
focused on the gold fever in their burgeoning neighbor to the south,
California.
As part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the Mexican
War, Mexico ceded California to the United States on February 2,
1848. Unknown to any of the treaty signers, gold had been discovered
nine days earlier, on January 24, at a sawmill owned by John A.
Sutter, a Swiss immigrant, on the South Fork of the American River.
The ensuing "gold rush" brought people from all over the world
to California to seek instant riches. In the 4 years from 1848 to 1852,
the population of California increased from 15,000 residents to
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