 The peasantry effectively disappeared, and a new class, the "rural gentry", emerged.These middle-class farmers, midway between the large commercial farms and smallholdings, were able to significantly increase their earnings by producing cash crops such as coffee, tobacco, sugar, and grapes, which were not labour-intensive and which fetched high prices at urban markets.Animal husbandry also increased, with increasingly large swathes of land being turned over to sheep and cattle farming.