(A) ** agriculture
(B) donations
(C) commercials
(D) industries
EXPLANATIONS BELOW
Concept note-1: -In 1860, the South was still predominantly agricultural, highly dependent upon the sale of staples to a world market. By 1815, cotton was the most valuable export in the United States; by 1840, it was worth more than all other exports combined.
Concept note-2: -With cash crops of tobacco, cotton and sugar cane, America’s southern states became the economic engine of the burgeoning nation. Their fuel of choice? Human slavery. If the Confederacy had been a separate nation, it would have ranked as the fourth richest in the world at the start of the Civil War.
Concept note-3: -By the early 1800s, cotton emerged as the South’s major cash crop-a good produced for commercial value instead of for use by the owner. Cotton quickly eclipsed tobacco, rice, and sugar in economic importance.