The importance of trade on the Silk Road was that b)goods, peoples, and ideas passed from one culture to another along the trade routes of the Silk Road. The definition of the Silk Road is "an ancient network of trade and cultural transmission routes that were central to cultural intersection through regions of the Asian continent connecting to the West and East by merchants,pilgrims, monks, soldiers, nomads and urban dwellers from China and India, to the Mediterranean Sea during various periods of time."
Americans moved to Texas in 1800s because of cotton cultivation. Southerners needed land for crop rotation to make some profit but they weren't allowed.