AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION
Beginning in the 17th century, new animal breeds, farming techniques and machinery meant that more land could be farmed with less effort. It was a slow, rural revolution, says Emma Griffin
New machinery, farming techniques and animal breeds meant that more land could be farmed, says Emma Griffin
Before the Industrial Revolution, the British economy was in something of a bind. Most people devoted most of their working lives towards food production; but precisely because so many people worked in agriculture, there were relatively few available to work in industry and manufacture, which made it difficult for these sectors to expand. What was needed was a rise in agricultural productivity. Only then could modern economic growth occur.
Between the 17th and 19th centuries just such an improvement in farming did occur, in a development that some historians have labelled the ‘agricultural revolution’. Like many revolutions, historians have argued over the suitability of the term, and disagreed about the precise timing and magnitude of change. Yet all are agreed that British agricultural output grew steadily between the 17th and mid-19th centuries and that these improvements were a vital precursor to the industrial revolution.
MORE FARM LAND
One of the most straightforward ways of increasing output was simply to put more land to agricultural use. One estimate suggests that the extent of arable, pasture and meadow increased from 21 million acres in 1700 to 30.6 million acres in 1850, an increase of nearly 50%. Most of the extra acres were added through the reclamation of woodlands and wastes – heathland covered in gorse, marshes, fens – land that had previously been of rather little agricultural value.
In Scotland, more land was brought into commercial agriculture by the Highland Clearances, which removed the local population practising subsistence agriculture and set up sheep-farming in its place. Alongside the addition of more farmland were a host of improvements to land that was already farmed, so that the output of each acre was also increased. The single most important of these was the introduction of the Norfolk four-course rotation, which replaced the fallow cycle of crop planting with clover and other legumes to feed nitrogen back into the soil. The new cycle had been pioneered by Thomas William Coke – ‘Coke of Norfolk’ – at his Holkham estate in Norfolk and was quickly adopted elsewhere, for it not only improved soil quality, it also allowed the farmer to grow crops during years where the land had previously been left fallow.
SELECTIVE BREEDING
Yields were further increased in the 18th century by the development of better strains of seeds and through active livestock breeding programmes. Coke of Norfolk once again led the way with his selective breeding of sheep on his Norfolk estate, to produce a fast maturing animal with long, fine wool. Robert Bakewell developed the breeding of cattle for beef rather than for use as draught animals and for dairy, and thanks to his and others’ breeding programmes, this period saw a dramatic increase in the size and quality of cattle.
By a variety of strategies, therefore, farmers in different parts of Britain, working with very different soils, climates and landscapes, coaxed ever greater yields from their lands.
Productivity on 18th-century farms was further increased by improvements in the
way that power was supplied. The substitution of animals for human muscle power was a particularly important element of this process, which was achieved in part by a simple increase in the number of draught animals at work on British farms, but also by changes in the animals used. Horses replaced oxen, and the size (and therefore the strength) of horses rose considerably. Added to that, a series of small improvements to plough design made ploughs lighter, easier to pull and more controllable. These kinds of piecemeal but steady improvements all helped to improve the productivity of farms by a considerable margin.
One of the most enduring elements of the agricultural revolution was the enclosure movement. Enclosure refers to the process whereby the collective farm management of open villages was replaced by private farms. At enclosure, those who held the right to farm the land exchanged those rights for an enclosed parcel of land of equivalent value. The new, private landowners tended to be more willing to invest, to innovate and to adopt new farming methods, and hence enclosure was often followed by increases in agricultural yields.
ENCLOSURES
Unlike most aspects of the agricultural revolution, enclosure has left an indelible trace on our landscape. The English countryside of fields and hedgerows was established when the owners of enclosed land planted hedgerows to separate their land from neighbours. Though enclosure helped to fashion a picturesque landscape, there were environmental losses, too. The later enclosures of the 18th, and particularly the early 19th, centuries, tended to be more destructive than the earlier enclosures, which had been occurring since the 12th century. Village greens, village ponds, recreation grounds, footpaths and bridleways were all greedily claimed by the rights holders during these late enclosures, and converted from land held in common for the public good into private property.
The agricultural revolution played an important part in launching the British industrial revolution and helped to create the wildlife-friendly landscape of hedgerows that is characteristic of rural Britain today. But these changes also came at a price.