Europeans, of course, primarily wanted European foods rather than exotic Indian crops. The foods also had to be comparatively nonperishable and easily transported. Grains, particularly wheat, and processed meat (hams, salt pork, and such) especially met European preferences. Commercial production of these commodities compelled American farmers to embrace the best European technology insofar as that technology fit the American scene. The plants, animals, methods, and tools all derived from Europe. Contrary to a common European view at the time, the immigrants did not bring the worst available methods to the New World. Nor did the Americans allow any deterioration of stock or plants without good economic reasons. Most European criticism about American farming centered on things of no consequence to American farmers, who were selling in a world market. True, Americans tended toward slovenly cultivation, but niceness of method mattered little if the land yielded an abundant exportable surplus. Americans paid less attention than Europeans to fertilizer, but Americans at first had less need for it. Livestock, in spite of nearly continual importations from Europe, tended to decline from a European standpoint. Still, the animals yielded meat of a quality suitable for export. The hardy American animals could survive in spite of casual care. Americans had few barns and sheds, but the world market for meat did not demand barns, stalls, and fancy feeding. American dairy cows yielded ridiculously low volumes of milk, butter, and cheese, but dairy products, after all, served only the resident Americans. The corn- and mast-fed hogs of America provided ham that was equal to any in Europe. If the European consumer bought American food, the American farmer thought it pointless to consider the comfort and emotional well-being of his animals. New Englanders tended to concentrate on animals, the middle Atlantic on grains, the upper South on tobacco, and the lower South on rice and indigo. The Revolutionary War disrupted the marketing from the farmer's view, but the major commercial commodities remained largely unchanged in the years immediately after the war. Indigo declined and then disappeared as a major export commodity, but cotton almost at once replaced it. In the 19th century men everywhere made great technological advances. In America, the advances took place in a sort of reciprocal action with three major historical series and events dominating the story: the westward movement, urbanization, and industrialization.