Agricultural Revolution

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

● Crop Rotation
● Mechanisation
● The Enclosure

Let’s know more about the

FACT FILE
Agricultural Revolution

The agricultural revolution, which

began in Britain in the 18th
century, was a progressive
modification of the conventional
agricultural system. The
reallocation of land ownership to
make farms more compact and
increased investment in
technical improvements, such as
new machinery, better drainage,
scientific breeding methods and
experimentation with new crops
and crop rotation systems, were
all part of this complex
transformation, which took until
the 19th century to complete. British Agricultural Revolution
 CROP ROTATION

Among these new crop-rotation techniques was the Norfolk four-course

system, founded in Norfolk county, England, which emphasised fodder
crops and the absence of the conventionally employed fallow year. Wheat
was grown in the first year, turnips in the second, barley in the third, with
clover undersown, and ryegrass in the fourth. In the fourth year, the clover
and ryegrass were harvested for fodder or grazed. Turnips were given to
cattle and sheep throughout the winter. Shorthorn beef cattle were
developed by selective breeding of native cattle in the Teeswater area of
Durham county, exemplifying the gains made possible by scientific
breeding.
Crop rotation is the
technique of planting a
variety of different types of
crops in the same area over
time to help replenish plant
nutrients and prevent
pathogens and pests from
accumulating when one
plant species is repeatedly
cultivated. By alternating
deep-rooted and shallow-
rooted plants, rotation can
Crop Rotation help improve soil structure
and fertility.
The Norfolk System, as it is now known, rotates crops so that various
crops are planted with the result that different kinds and quantities of
nutrients are taken from the soil as the plants grow. The Norfolk four-field
system was notable for using workers at periods when demand was not
at its height. Cover crops like turnips and clover were not allowed in the
common field system because they obstructed access to the fields and
allowed other people’s cattle to graze the turnips.
During the Middle Ages, the open field
system featured a two-field crop
rotation system, with one field being left
fallow or turned into pasture for a period
of time in order to recover part of the
plant nutrients. Later, a three-year three-
field crop rotation cycle was used, with a
different crop in each of two fields (e.g.,
oats, rye, wheat and barley), a legume
like peas or beans in the second field,
and the third field fallow.
In a three-crop rotation
system, 10-30% of the arable
land is usually fallow. About
every year, each field was
planted with a different crop.
Over the next two centuries,
consistent planting of
legumes like peas and beans
in previously fallow areas
gradually restored the fertility
of certain croplands.

● The capability of bacteria on legume roots to fix nitrogen from the

air into the soil in a form that plants could use helped to improve
plant growth in the empty field.
● Flax and mustard family members were other crops that were
planted on occasion.
● Convertible husbandry, or the technique of switching a field from
pasture to grain, incorporated grassland into the rotation.
● Ploughing grassland and planting cereals resulted in good yields for
a few years because nitrogen builds up slowly in pasture.
● Convertible husbandry, on the other hand, had a significant
disadvantage in terms of the amount of effort required to break up
pastures and the difficulty in building them.

Farmers in Flanders (parts of France and modern-day Belgium) developed

a more efficient four-field crop rotation system, replacing the three-year
crop rotation fallow year with turnips and clover (a legume) as forage
crops. Farmers were able to recover soil fertility and some of the plant
nutrients that had been lost due to crop rotation using the four-field
rotation approach.

● Turnips first appear in English probate documents in 1638, although

they were not frequently utilised until around 1750.
● Before turnips and clover were widely planted, fallow land made up
around 20% of England's arable land in 1700.
 ● Since the introduction of guano and nitrates from South America in
the mid-19th century, fallow has progressively diminished, reaching
just approximately 4% in 1900.
● Wheat, barley, turnips and clover, in that sequence, would be grown
in each field in subsequent years.
● Turnips were a good feed crop, as ruminant animals could consume
their tops and roots for most of the summer and winter.
● Clover would return nitrates (nitrogen-containing salts) to the soil,
therefore there was no need to leave the soil fallow.
● When ploughed under after one or two years, the clover formed
excellent pasture and hay fields, as well as green manure.
● Clover and turnips allowed more animals to be retained through the
winter, resulting in more milk, cheese, meat and manure, all of which
helped to preserve soil fertility.

MECHANISATION

The discovery of new, and improvement of existing equipment, such as

the plough, seed drill and threshing machine, were major factors in the
Agricultural Revolution, since they improved the efficiency of agricultural
operations. The Agricultural Revolution was characterised by the
mechanisation and rationalisation of agriculture. To increase the
efficiency of various agricultural processes, new tools were devised and
existing ones were refined.

For a millennium, the basic plough with coulter, ploughshare and

mouldboard remained in use. Major design modifications did not become
frequent until the Age of Enlightenment, when technology advanced
rapidly. In the early 17th century, the Dutch bought an iron-tipped, curved
mouldboard, adjustable depth plough from the Chinese. It could be drawn
by one or two oxen instead of the six or eight that the heavy-wheeled
northern European plough required.
Dutch contractors engaged to
drain East Anglian fens and
Somerset moors brought the
Dutch plough to Britain. The
plough was especially effective
on wet, swampy terrain, but it
was rapidly adopted for usage on
regular ground. In 1730, Joseph
Foljambe of Rotherham, England,
based the Rotherham plough on
innovative designs and coated
the mouldboard with iron.
Rotherham Plough
● The coulter, mouldboard and
handles were the only parts of
the Rotherham (or Rotherham
swing) plough, unlike the heavy
plough.
● Foljambe began mass-
producing these ploughs in a
facility outside of Rotherham in
the 1760s, utilising standard
designs and interchangeable
components.
● The plough was simple to build
for a blacksmith, and by the
end of the 18th century,
country foundries were
producing them. It was the
cheapest and best plough
available by 1770.
● Scotland, America and France
were all affected. It’s possible
that it was the first plough to
be mass-produced in factories
and to be economically
successful.

In 1789, an Ipswich ironfounder named Robert Ransome began casting

ploughshares in a disused malting at St Margaret’s Ditches. A damaged
mould in his foundry enabled molten metal to come into contact with cold
metal, causing the metal surface to become incredibly hard — chilled
casting — which he marketed as ‘self-sharpening’ ploughs and for which
he earned patents. Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies produced 86 plough
models for various soils in 1789.

The seed drill was brought to Italy in the mid-16th century from China,
where it was created in the 2nd century BCE. It was copyrighted by the
Venetian Senate in 1566, and it was first assigned to Camillo Torello.
Tadeo Cavalina of Bologna described a seed drill in great detail in 1602.
In 1701, Jethro Tull improved it further in England. Prior to the invention
of the seed drill, most seeds were planted by manually disseminating
(evenly throwing) them across the prepared soil and then lightly
harrowing the earth to cover the seed. Birds, insects and mice ate seeds
that were left on the ground. Seeds were sown too close together and too
far apart due to a lack of control over spacing. Alternatively, seeds might
be planted one at a time with a hoe and/or a shovel.

● Cutting down on wasted

seed was important
because the yield of seeds
harvested to seeds planted
at that time was only
around four or five.
● Tull’s drill was a
mechanical seeder that
effectively sowed at the
proper depth and spacing,
then covered the seed to
allow it to flourish.
● Seed drills of this and
subsequent sorts, on the
other hand, were both
costly and unreliable, as
well as delicate.
● They were not widely used
in Europe until the mid-
19th century.
● Many early drills were
small enough to be hauled
by a single horse and were
in use well into the 1930s.
Tull’s Seed Drill
● Tull recalled how disagreement
with his servants prompted him to
design the seed drill in his 1731
publication.
● He fought to impose his new ideas
on them, partly because they
resented the danger to their jobs
as workers and ploughing skills.
● Around 1733, he also devised
apparatus to help him carry out his
drill husbandry technique.
● His first innovation was a drill
plough for sowing wheat and
turnip seed three rows at a time in
drills.
A threshing machine, also known as a thresher, is a piece of farm
equipment that threshes grain by pounding the plant to make the seeds
fall out of the stalks and husks. Threshing was done by hand with flails
before such devices were created, and it was exceedingly hard and time-
consuming, accounting for nearly a quarter of agricultural work by the
18th century. Farm work was relieved of a significant amount of drudgery
when this procedure was mechanised.

Andrew Meikle, a Scottish

engineer, created the first
threshing machine in
1786, and the following
adoption of similar
devices was one of the
earliest examples of
agricultural
mechanisation.
Thresher

THE ENCLOSURE

Enclosure, or the practice of ending customary rights on common land

previously held in the open field system and restricting land usage to the
owner, was one of the causes of the Agricultural Revolution and a major
factor in labour migration from rural areas to increasingly industrialised
cities. Enclosure took away the majority of England's medieval common
land.

● Enclosure or inclosure was a process in English social and economic

history that abolished customary privileges such as mowing
meadows for hay or grazing livestock on common land that was
formerly held in the open field system.
● These uses of the property were prohibited to the owner once it was
fenced, and the land was declared to be for the use of commoners.
● In England and Wales, the phrase also refers to the process that
brought an end to the old practice of open-field arable farming.
 ● Such land was walled (enclosed) and deeded or claimed to one or
more owners under enclosure.
● During the 16th century, the process of enclosure became a
common aspect of the English agricultural landscape.
● Unenclosed commons were primarily limited to extensive stretches
of harsh pasture in mountainous regions and relatively tiny residual
pieces of land in the lowlands by the 19th century.

Enclosure was accomplished by purchasing the ground rights and all

common rights in order to obtain exclusive rights of use, increasing the
value of the property. Another technique was to pass laws that caused or
forced enclosure, such as parliamentary enclosure. Enclosure was
occasionally accompanied by force, opposition and violence, and it is still
one of the most controversial aspects of English agricultural and
economic history.

● Large landowners benefited ● While many villagers were

mostly from a gain in the value
of their own land, rather than
from expropriation.
● After the enclosure, smaller
landowners may be able to
sell their property to larger
landowners for a better price.
● Protests against parliamentary
enclosures persisted,
sometimes in Parliament,
often in the afflicted
communities, and
occasionally as organised
mass revolts.
● Enclosed land was worth
twice as much, a price
supported by its greater
production.
given plots in the newly
enclosed manor, this
compensation was not
necessarily enough to cover
the expenses of enclosure and
fencing for small landowners.
● Many historians believe that
enclosure had a significant
role in the decline of small
landholders in England
compared to the Continent,
however others believe the
trend began earlier.
The consequences of enclosure on the household economies of
smallholders and landless labourers sparked widespread opposition.
Common rights previously included grazing rights for geese, foraging for
pigs, gleaning, berrying and fuel collecting, in addition to cattle and sheep
grazing. Agriculture employment did not decline throughout the time of
legislative enclosures, but it did not keep pace with the expanding
population. As a result, significant numbers of people moved from rural
regions to cities, where they were employed as workers throughout the
Industrial Revolution.

Enclosed Fields

The farmer had control over enclosed land and was able to use improved
farming methods. In contemporaneous sources, there was universal
consensus that enclosed property provided higher profit potential. Crop
yields and livestock output grew after enclosure, while productivity
improved to the point where there was a labour surplus. One of the things
that aided the Industrial Revolution was the expanded labour supply.
 THINK ABOUT THIS! ACTIVITIES FOR AGES 11-14

IDENTIFICATION. Identify the missing word/s in the following

1 sentences.

__________ __________ is the technique of planting a variety of different

types of crops in the same area over time.

The __________ __________ system was notable for using workers at

periods when demand was not at its height.

The Agricultural Revolution was characterised by the ______________

and ______________ of agriculture.

The __________, __________ and __________ were the only parts of the
Rotherham plough, unlike the heavy plough.

VOCABULARY. Write a brief description of the following terms

2 found in the resource.

THRESHER

PLOUGH

COMMON FIELD
SYSTEM

CONVERTIBLE
HUSBANDRY
 KEY PEOPLE. Write a brief description of the significance of the
3 following people.

JETHRO TULL

ROBERT RANSOME

JOSEPH FOLJAMBE

LISTING. Identify some of the causes of the Agricultural

4 Revolution.
 TIMELINE. Create a timeline by identifying the events that took
5 place during the following periods.

MAY 1701

MAY 1730

MAY 1773

MAY 1801