<em>They helped farmers transport their goods to wider markets.</em>
Explanation:
Railroads helped farmers in the late 1800s by using them to transport their goods to wider markets.
During this time, it was still very rural, particularly in the South. While the North was beginning to become industrialized, the South was still bare and rural, except for farms. Towns and homes were spread out to make room for farms, so if goods needed to be delivered, it took a while. Railroads greatly helped farmers by not only covering these distances quickly but by taking the goods even farther and taking them to wider markets.
On the contrary, railroads would also charge small farms higher shipping rates. This meant that in order to ship the goods, the farmers would have to pay a lot. They hated this, many thought it was wrong and even exploitative.
