In the northern American colonies, especially New England, tight-knit farming families, organized in communities of several thousand people, dotted the landscape by the mid-eighteenth century. New Englanders staked their future on a mixed economy. They cleared forests for timber used in barrels, ships, houses, and barns. They plumbed the offshore waters for fish to feed local populations. And they cultivated and grazed as much of the thin-soiled, rocky hills and bottomlands as they could recover from the forest.

The farmers of the middle colonies-Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York-set their wooden plows to much richer soils than New Englanders did. They enjoyed the additional advantage of setting an area already partly cleared by Native Americans who had relied more on agriculture than had New England tribes. Thus favored, mid-Atlantic farm families produced modest surpluses of corn, wheat, beef, and pork. By the mid-eighteenth century, ships from New York and Philadelphia were carrying these foodstuffs not only to the West Indies, always a primary market, but also to areas that could no longer feed themselves-England, Spain, Portugal, and even New England.

In the North, the broad ownership of land distinguished farming society from every other agricultural region of the Western world. Although differences in circumstances and ability led gradually toward greater social stratification, in most communities, the truly rich and terribly poor were few and the gap between them small compared with European society. Most men other than indentured servants (servants contracted to work for a specific number of years) lived to purchase or inherit a farm of at least 50 acres. With their family’s labor, they earned a decent existence and provided a small inheritance for each of their children. Settlers valued land highly, for owning land ordinarily guaranteed both economic independence and political rights.

By the eighteenth century, amid widespread property ownership, a rising population pressed against a limited land supply, especially in New England. Family farms could not be divided and subdivided indefinitely, for it took at least fifty acres(of which only a quarter could usually be cropped) to support a single family. In Concurd, Massachusetts, for example, the founders had worked farms averaging about 250 acres. A century later, in the 1730s, the average farm had shrunk by two thirds, as farm owners struggled to provide an inheritance for the three or four sons that the average marriage produced.

The decreasing fertility of the soil compounded the problem of dwindling farm size in New England. When land had been plentiful, farmers planted crops in the same field for three years and then let it lie fallow (unplanted) in pasture seven years or more until it regained its fertility. But on the smaller farms of the eighteenth century, farmers had reduced fallow time to only a year or two. Such intense use of the soil reduced crop yields, forcing farmers to plow marginal land or shift to livestock production.

The diminishing size and productivity of family farms forced many New Englanders to move to the frontier or out of the area altogether in the eighteen century. "Many of our old towns are too full of inhabitants for husbandry, many of them living on small shares of land, " complained one writer. In Concurd, one of every four adult males migrated from town every decade from the 1740s on, and in many towns migration out was even greater. Some drifted south to New York and Pennsylvania. Others sought opportunities as artisans in the coastal towns or took to the sea. More headed for the colonies, western frontier or north into New Hampshire and the eastern frontier of Maine. Several thousand New England families migrated even farther north to the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. Throughout New England after the early eighteenth century, most farmers' sons knew that their destiny lay elsewhere.

Wherever they took up farming, northern cultivators engaged in agricultural work routines that were far less intense than in the south. The growing season was much shorter, and the cultivation of cereal crops required incessant labor only during spring planting and autumn harvesting. This less burdensome work rhythm let many northern cultivators to fill out their calendars with intermittent work as clockmakers, shoemakers, carpenters, and weavers.

在18世纪中叶，在北美洲的殖民地，特别是新英格兰，一个典型现象就是紧密团结的农业家庭组织成为几千人的社区。新英格兰人把自己的未来都押在了混合经济上。他们砍伐木材用于木桶，船只，房屋和谷仓。在近海水域捕捞鱼类以满足当地居民的需要。他们在那快瘠土、岩石的山丘和土地上耕种和放牧，就像它们可以从森林中恢复出来一样。 在宾夕法尼亚州，特拉华州，新泽西州和纽约州中部殖民地的农民们把他们的木头犁用于比新英格兰人更肥沃的土壤上。他们所享受的另外一个优势，那就是设立一个美国原住民已经部分清除的地区，它们比新英格兰部落更依赖农业。因此，大西洋中部的农场家庭生产出了充足的玉米，小麦，牛肉和猪肉。到了十八世纪中叶，来自纽约和费城的船只不仅把这些食物运送到西印度群岛，这个地方一直是主要的市场，而且还运送到了那些当地粮食无法自足的地区，如英格兰，西班牙，葡萄牙，甚至新英格兰。 在北方，广泛的土地所有权将农业社会与西方世界的其他农业地区区分开来。虽然环境和能力的差异逐渐导致社会分化加大，但在大多数社区中，真正富裕和极度贫穷的人很少，而与欧洲社会相比，他们之间的差距很小。除了契约仆人（雇佣合约工作了特定年限的仆人）以外，大多数人还能够购买或继承了至少50英亩的农场。他们的家庭劳动使他们获得了体面的生活，并为他们的每个孩子提供了一笔小小的遗产。定居者非常重视土地，因为拥有了土地能够既保证了经济独立，又保证了政治权利。 到了十八世纪，在财产所有权普遍化的情况下，不断增长的人口对有限的土地供应造成了压力，尤其是在新英格兰地区。家庭农场不能被无限期地分割和细分，因为它至少需要50英亩（其中只剩下四分之一）以支撑一个家庭。例如，在马萨诸塞州的Concurd，创始人农场平均面积约为250英亩。一个世纪以后，在17世纪30年代，农场平均缩小了三分之二，因为农场主们努力为结婚的三四个儿子提供一笔遗产。 土壤肥力的下降使得新英格兰地区农场规模缩小的问题加剧了。当土地肥沃时，农民在同一土地上种植三年农作物，然后让它在7年或更长时间里休耕（不种植），直到它恢复了肥力。但在十八世纪的小农场中，农民们把休耕时间缩短到了一年或两年。如此频繁的使用土地降低了作物产量，迫使农民耕种边际土地或转移到畜牧生产。 在18世纪，由于家庭农场的规模不断缩小，生产力的不断下降，迫使许多新英格兰人不得不搬到边界地带或离开这个地区。“一位作家抱怨道：” 我们的许多老城镇有太多的居民务农，他们中的许多人生活在一小片土地上“。在Concurd中，四分之一的成年男性从十九世纪四十年代起每十年一次从城里迁徙，而在许多城镇，移民的数量甚至更大。一些人向南搬到纽约和宾夕法尼亚州。另一些人则在沿海城镇寻找机会，或者到海边去寻找机会。更多的是前往殖民地，西部边境或北部进入新罕布什尔州和缅因州的东部边境。几千个新英格兰家庭甚至向北迁移到新斯科舍省的安纳波利斯谷。在18世纪早期的新英格兰地区，大多数农民的孩子都知道他们的命运会是在别处。 在他们从事农业的地方，北方耕种者都从事农业工作，比南方的工作要少得多。北方的植物生长季节要短得多，谷类作物的种植只需要在春季播种和秋季收获期间不间断劳动即可。因此这种不太繁琐的工作节奏使得许多北方的耕种者从事间歇的工作来填补自己的生活，像钟表匠，制鞋师，木匠和织工。