> farming was insanely lucrative during that time

That is wildly inaccurate. Do you think people were flocking to cities to flee the "insanely lucrative" jobs they already had?

Farm labor paid significantly less than industrialized labor at the time. I suspect in addition to just making things up, you're looking at a few landowners who were quite wealthy due to their land holdings (and other assets) and what they have left behind while completely ignoring the lives led by the vast majority of farmers at the time.