Question 1.
Why were the farmers and landlords of England greatly alarmed in 1830 ?
Answer:

• The landlords and farmers were greatly alarmed because they were receiving
  threatening letters from a mysterious person called Swing. Most of these letters were signed in the name of captain swing.
• The people were angry because the landlords began to use threshing machine leading to the unemployment of labourers and loss of their livelihood.
• In 1830, a threshing machine was destroyed. There were riots which also alarmed the farmers.

Question 2.
Explain any three reasons f§*r the increasing demand for the production of wheat in the nineteenth century USA.
Answer:
Three reasons for the increasing demand for the production of wheat in the nineteenth century USA were :

• From the late nineteenth century, there was a dramatic expansion of wheat production in the USA. The urban population in the USA was growing and the export market was becoming ever bigger.
• As the demand for wheat increased, wheat prices rose, encouraging the farmers to grow wheat.
• The spread of the railways made it easier to transport the grain from wheat-growing regions to the eastern coast for export.
• During the First World War, when Russian supplies of wheat was cut off and the USA, had to feed Europe, US President Wilson called upon the farmers to respond to the need of the time. (Any three points)

Question 3.
Which innovations helped farmers to increase agricultural production in England ?
Answer:
Food-grain production was made possible not by any radical innovations in agricultural technology, but by bringing new lands under cultivation. Landlords sliced up pasturelands, carved up open fields, cut up forest commons, took over marshes, and turned larger and larger areas into agricultural fields.

Farmers at this time continued to use the simple innovations in agriculture that had become common by the early eighteenth century. It was in about the 1660s that farmers in many parts of England began growing turnip and clover. They soon discovered that planting these crops improved the soil and made it more fertile.

Question 4.
State any three features of the ‘Open Field’ system which prevailed in England in the 18th and early 19th century.
Answer:
Three features of the Open Field were :

• Before this period, in large parts of England, the countryside was open. It was not partitioned into enclosed lands privately owned by landlords.
• Peasants cultivated on strips of land around the village they lived in. Every peasant had a mix of good and bad land.
• Beyond the strips of cultivation lay the common land. All villagers had access to the common. Here they pastured their cows and grazed sheep, collected food, fuel and fodder and a variety of fruits. They fished in the rivers and ponds and hunted rabbits in common forests.
• For the poor, the common land was very necessary for survival. It supplemented their meagre income, sustained their cattle and helped them tide over bad times when the crops failed. (Any three points)

Question 5.
Which system was introduced by the British to make the unwilling cultivators produce opium ? How did this system work ?
Answer:
The unwilling cultivators were made to produce opium by the British through a system of advances. In the rural areas of Bengal and Bihar, there were many poor peasants. They never had enough to survive. It was difficult for them to pay rent to the landlord or to buy food and clothing. The government’s opium agents advanced money to them through the headmen of their village. They felt tempted to accept it, hoping to meet their immediate needs and pay back the loan later. But the loan tied the peasant to the headmen and through him to the government. By taking the loan the cultivator was forced to grow opium on a specified area of land and hand over the produce to the agents once the crop had been harvested.

Question 6.
Discuss why the British Parliament passed the Enclosure Acts.
Answer:
Till the middle of the eighteenth century the Enclosure Movement proceeded very slowly. The early enclosures were usually created by individual landlords. They were not supported by the state or the Church. After the mid-eighteenth century, however, the Enclosure Movement swept through the countryside, changing the English landscape forever. Between 1750 and 1850, 6 million acres of land was enclosed. The British Parliament no longer watched this progress from a distance. It passed 4,000 Acts legalising these Enclosures.

Question 7.
Why did the whole region of the Great Plains become a dust bowl ?
Answer:
When wheat cultivation had expanded dramatically in the early 20th century, zealous farmers had recklessly uprooted all vegetation, and tractors had turned the soil over, and broken the sod into dust.

The whole region had become a dust bowl. In the 1930s, terrifying dust storms began to blow over the southern plains of America. Black blizzards rolled in, very often 7,000 to 8,000 feet high, rising like monstrous waves of muddy water. The American dream of a land of plenty had turned into a nightmare.

Question 8.
‘The conflict between the British government, peasants and local traders continued as long as opium production lasted.’ Explain.
Answer:
By 1773, the British government in Bengal had established a monopoly to trade in opium. No one else was legally permitted to trade in the product. By the 1820s, the British found to their horror that opium production in their territories was rapidly declining, but its production outside the British territories was increasing.

It was being produced in Central India and Rajasthan, within princely states that were not under British control. In these regions, local traders were offering much higher prices to peasants and exporting opium to China. In fact, armed bands of traders were found carrying on the trade in the 1820s. To the British this trade was illegal: it was smuggling, and it had to be stopped. Government monopoly had to be retained.

It therefore instructed its agents posted in the princely states to confiscate all opium and destroy the crops. This conflict between the British government, peasants and local traders continued as long as opium production lasted.

Question 9.
What were the consequences of expansion of wheat agriculture in the Great plains ?
Answer:
The consequences of expansion of wheat agriculture in the Great plains were :

• As the skies darkened, and .(he dust swept in, people were blinded and choked.
• Cattle were suffocated to death, their lungs caked with dust and mud.
• Sand buried fences, covered fields, and coated the surfaces of rivers till the fish died.
• Dead bodies of birds and animals were strewn all over the landscape.
• Tractors and machines that had ploughed the earth and harvested the wheat in the 1920s were now clogged with dust, damaged beyond repair. (Any three)

Question 10.
Discuss the westward expansion of the white settlers in America. How did it lead to a destruction of American Indians ?
Answer:
(a) After the American War of Independence from 1775 to 1783 and the formation of the United States of America, the white Americans began to move westward. By the time Thomas Jefferson became President of the USA in 1800, over 700,000 white settlers had moved on to the Appalachian plateau through the passes. Seen from the east coast, America seemed to be a land of promise. Its wilderness could be turned into cultivated fields.
(b) The westward expansion of settlers in the USA led to a complete destruction of American Indians who were pushed westwards, down the Mississippi river, and then further west.
(c) Numerous wars were waged in which Indians were massacred and many of their villages burnt. The Indians resisted, won many victories in wars, but were ultimately forced to sign treaties, give up their land and move westward.

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