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:老托福阅读文本 passage29

During the second half of the nineteenth century, the production of food and feed crops in the United States rose at an extraordinarily rapid rate. Corn production increased by four and a half times, hay by five times, oats and wheat by seven times. The most crucial factor behind this phenomenal upsurge in productivity was the widespread adoption of labor-saving machinery by northern farmers. By 1850 horse-drawn reaping machines that cut grain were being introduced into the major grain-growing regions of the country. Horse-powered threshing machines to separate the seeds from the plants were already in general use. However, it was the onset of the Civil War in 1861 that provided the great stimulus for the mechanization of northern agriculture. With much of the labor force inducted into the army and with grain prices on the rise, northern farmers rushed to avail themselves of the new labor-saving equipment. In 1860 there were approximately 80,000 reapers in the country; five years later there were 350,000.

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