1. AP EURO Unit #3 – Scientific Revolution and the Era of the Enlightenment Lesson #304 Agricultural Revolution

2. Essential Questions
What change will be effected by the enclosure movement?
How will the Agricultural Revolution eventually feed into the Industrial Revolution?

3. What WAS the Agricultural Revolution?
80% of people in Western Europe still lived on the farm – owned a few strips of land; most survived on what they grew
% was even higher in the East
Output was poor: only five bushels harvest for every bushel sown
Every 3 seasons was poor; every 8-9 was a disaster
Textbook Definition: The transformation of farming in Europe, from “subsistence” farming to farming for profit.
This was only possible when investors will willing to be innovative and take risks
Most poor farmers were “bought out” during this era, and had to find a job for wages (rather than trade)
Become a farm hand, or find a job in the city

4. The Start of the era
Population was back on the rise in the 18th century
That meant a rise in the bread prices
Rich land owners started looking for ways to maximize profits – GET RICH QUICKER
The Dutch and the English were the first to manage land more effectively

5. The Open Field System
For more than 1000 years, Europeans survived with complete dependence on their village
Each village would decide when to plant, and what to plant
People lived clustered in a village, surrounded by four sections of land, each divided into strips of land. Families owned a set # of strips, and as much as half was owned by the Lord
The whole village worked together, rotating the crop type each season
Wheat, rye, oats, beans
One section would be left to “fallow

6. Open Field System

7. Open Field System

8. The Open Field System
Most people had some livestock, and let it wander on common land
Chickens, goats (for milk), sheep (for milk or wool) were common
Cows were usually killed by winter – too expensive to feed during the winter months
Cattle (oxen) and horses were often owned in common, and were also pastured on common land (“the commons”)

9. Charles “Turnip” Townshend
Was a whig MP – Chancellor of the exchequer for 10 years
Retired from politics 1730 – got in to experimental farming
Experimented with crop rotation: turnips or clover, instead of letting the land fallow
Clover replenished soil, and allowed common land to be expanded – more grazing animals
Turnips were “fodder” crops – good to keep animals alive through winter

10. Robert Bakewell Experimented with scientific breeding of cows
Hardier, meatier, more milk
He tried revolutionary techniques with grassland irrigation, flooding and fertilizing pasturelands
Result:
1700: average bull weighed 370# at slaughter
1786: weight was 840#
Sheep breeding was even more impressive
Was able to quickly select for large, yet fine boned sheep, with long lustrous wool

11. Enclosure Movement
Wealthy landowners were ready to invest in sheep raising
Increased population needed more clothing
Landowners bought out strips from peasants
They then “enclosed” land for “improvement”

15. Enclosure Movement
Parliament legislated the selling common land, forcing many peasants to sell their strips
Disrupted farming communities
Favored nobility
Too early to fuel industrial revolution, but landless peasants will eventually move

16. Population Explosion Jethro Tull – SEED DRILL
More effective farming for food, too
Led to abundance of inexpensive food
Fueled population EXPLOSION
Reason: decrease in infant mortality
(NOT because of any medical advances)
Additional reason: sanitation improvements
Clean water pumped into villages
Sewage pumped out, and away from water supply
Swamps drained (fewer insects)
Canals and roads built by absolutist rulers
1.5m

17. Seed Drill

18. Seed Drill

19. Seed Drill

20. Rotherham Plough
While not the first iron plough, it was the first iron plough to have any commercial success
technological innovations in its design
lighter than traditional ploughs; remained in use in Britain until the development of the tractor.
more efficient as it was light and economical enough in draught to be drawn by a pair of horses.
Agrig Rev.
Start at 1:30 – 5m

21. Introduction of American crops
Corn
Potato
Now the Irish get to be Irish
Squash
Tomato
Now, the Italians can get to the creation of pizza

22. Enclosure Movement articles
The political dominance of large landowners determined the course of enclosure….[I]t was their power in Parliament and as local Justices of the Peace that enabled them to redistribute the land in their own favor.
A typical round of enclosure began when several, or even a single, prominent landholder initiated it … by petition to Parliament.… [T]he commissioners were invariably of the same class and outlook as the major landholders who had petitioned in the first place, [so] it was not surprising that the great landholders awarded themselves the best land and the most of it, thereby making England a classic land of great, well-kept estates with a small marginal peasantry and a large class of rural wage labourers.
Libertarian historian Joseph R. Stromberg

23. Enclosure Movement articles
“The proprietors of large estates generally agree upon the measure, adjust the principal points among themselves, and fix upon their attorney before they appoint any general meeting of all the proprietors. The small proprietor, whose property in the township is perhaps his all, has little or no weight in regulating the clauses of the Act of Parliament, has seldom if ever an opportunity of putting a single one in the bill favourable to his rights, and has as little influence in the choice of commissioners; and of consequence, they have seldom any great inducement to be attentive to his interest; some recent instances of which I have heard of.”
Arthur Young, A Six Months Tour Through the North of England (1770)