The Agricultural Revolution Charlie Travis, Angelina Garavente

Pre- Revolution Agriculture  About 80 % of Western European countries relied on agriculture for their livelihood  Most regions of Europe had horrible low output harvests in the 16 th and 17 th century  Repeated bad harvest in the 17 th century and early 18 th century led people to consume “famine foods” such as chestnuts, stripped bark,etc.  Unbalanced diets led people to become weak and susceptible to disease especially from influenza and smallpox

Pre-Revolution Cont.  The open-field system was a product of medieval agriculture  The system created a structure where a large portion of fields were set aside to be cultivated by the peasants of a given village; the peasants cultivated the land as a single community  Problems with this: SOIL EXHAUSTION = communities would plant wheat year after year resulting in a depletion of nitrogen from the soil  Traditional villages would allow a year of fallow to help the soil and land recover its fertility. This process limited production and the food supply

The Agricultural Revolution  Once people came to realize that they could replace fallow with actual crops (crop rotation) historians called this the Agri. Revolution because of how much production results changed for farmers  Farmers discovered that by alternating between grain crops and certain nitrogen-storing crops such as peas, beans, turnips, and potatoes they could keep soil fertile while continuously producing  As the 18 th century continued more and more complex forms of crop rotation were being developed based on the soil of various places

Agricultural Revolution Continued  As a result of new complex crop rotation plans many progressive farmers got rid of the open-field system and replaced it with enclosure  Enclosure was the process in which landholders in villages enclosed and consolidated their scattered holdings into compact, fenced-in fields in order to farm more effectively and efficiently  Peasants and small landowners who relied on the open-fields firmly opposed this system  Overall all the Agri. Revolution had many positive effects including more livestock from increased food supply, increased livestock meant increased manure for fertilizer, and overall more food and bread thus creating healthier people throughout Europe.

Origins in Low Countries/England  Many new farming methods originated in Holland  Enclosed fields, continuous rotation, heavy manuring, along with a wide variety of crops were prevalent throughout Holland  In addition the Dutch had developed methods of draining swamp lands to increase space for farming  Holland had both space and population pressures that resulted in them being highly innovative with their farming techniques  England followed Holland and learned from Dutch experts how to drain marshlands and swamps  Jethro Tull of England also developed significant ideas regarding farming such as using horses instead of the slow oxen and also he advised people spread seed with drilling equipment over hand

The Cost Of Enclosure  Aristocracy benefited directly from higher yields of crops that could support higher rents, initiative and enterprise of big English landowners now compared to continental landowners  Laws passed by Parliament to survey land led to heavy expenses, smaller landowners had to sell out to pay dues, landless cottagers lost access to common pasture which was a low blow for poor families b/c couldn’t raise livestock

Cost of Enclosure Cont.  By 1700 there was a clear pattern of landownership and production:  (1)Few large landowners at one end, large mass of landless cottagers who labored mainly for wages on the other  (2)In between were two groups: small independent farmers who owed their own land and prosperous tenant farmers who sold output on cash market  (3)Small independent farmers decreasing, profit-minded market- oriented tenant farmers increased- key to mastering new farming methods such as drainage, fenced fields, improving soil with fertilizers

Cost of Enclosure Cont.  By eliminating common rights and reducing access of poor to land, marked rise of market- oriented estate agriculture and emergence of a landless rural proletariat (industrial worker-poor).  By 1815 tiny minority of wealthy English landowners held most of land, rented through agents to middle-size farmers, who relied on landless laborers for their workforce proletarianization- transformation of large number of small peasant farmers into landless rural wage earners

Limitations on Population Growth  Cyclical pattern of population, after 1350 Black Death caused decrease in population and a labor shortage- in East led to reinstitution of serfdom  After 1500 population growth outstripped growth of agriculture, food prices rose more rapidly than wages, deteriorating living standards, not enough $$ for food.  Modest population increase, but abnormal years and tragic periods led to sharp declines in population until after 1700  Famine, disease, war -all causes.

The New Patterns of the 18 th Century  Growth of population, dramatic after about 1750  Some increase in birth rate, but mostly decline in mortality  Bubonic plague disappeared, no big medical advances but improvements in water supply & sewage led to somewhat better public health, reduced disease  Humans became better at safeguarding food supply and protecting against famine

The New Patterns of the 18 th Century cont.  Better roads and canals allowed emergency foods to be brought in, more gentleman-like warfare, less destructive  Renewed population growth continued imbalance between the number of people and the economic opportunities available to them  Agriculture could not provide enough work for rapidly growing labor force, poor had to look for new ways to make a living, ruh roh.