The railroads were equally adept at transporting agricultural produce, allowing the different farming districts to specialize and thereby exploit their comparative advantages—the South for cotton and tobacco, the Midwest for corn and wheat, Texas for cattle, California for fruits and vegetables—and further freeing the industrial regions to concentrate on manufacturing. The results were little short of miraculous. Between 1869 and the end of the nineteenth century, the American economy grew as no economy had ever done before and very few did after.
