1820 | Agriculture
Agriculture
Congress enacts a land law April 24 providing for the sale of 80 acres of public land at $1.25 per acre in cash, making it possible for a man to buy a farm for $100 with no need for further payments. Thousands of farmers are in debt to the government for public lands on which they have made down payments of only $80 each, and farmers who have paid in full are angry (see 1804).
Nebraska Territory is "a great American desert," says Major Stephen H. Long (see Pike, 1806; Deere, 1837; irrigation, 1848).
Farmers begin using mechanical cultivators, eliminating the need for hand power in weeding corn and giving farmers a tool superior to the crude plows they have used for the purpose (year approximate). The practical seed drill that will be introduced in the next decade or two along with the corn planter will increase the efficiency of farming (see harvester, 1831).
Puerto Rico has 1,545 sugar plantations, up from just seven in 1582, as high prices encourage planting (but see 1840). The island has become a sanctuary for immigrants forced to leave Latin American countries made dangerous by wars of independence.
Salem County, New Jersey, Horticultural Society president Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson eats a raw tomato in front of a skeptical crowd at the Salem courthouse in September, defying predictions that it will soon kill him. He has experimented with tomatoes in his garden and takes pleasure in eating them raw (see 1861).