A 'New Farming' - The agricultural revolution.

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A 'NEW FARMING'

The population of Britain from 1750 onwards increased immensly, therefore causing the Agricultural Revolution. Part of the problem was due to the fact that there was just too many people to feed purely by relying on farmed foods. The 'Agricultural Revolution' was the particular period of time when farming and producing enough food for everyone became a major problem. The four main 'stages' of the Agricultural Revolution were enclosure, machinery, improvements in stock breeding and crop rotation. In this essay, a clear and fairly accurate description, as well as the general information, of each 'stage' has been written.

   The first main 'stage' in the Agricultural Revolution was enclosure. Before enclosure, farming was mainly done with farmers having their own individual strip of land in one large, open field. Each farmer would have been using their 'plot' to grow different crops, and these plots would have been seperated by a ditch. When enclosure was introduced, instead of having a large field with lots of different crops, a larger area of the field would have been enclosed by hedges or ditches and used for one particular crop.

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   The second 'stage' was machinery. One of the inventors who helped to change the way of farming was Jethro Tull. He was best known as the inventor of the seed drill, which he invented in 1701. Tull also devised a horse-drawn hoe to help with soil aeration. The seed drill was invented to help sow seeds in accurately spaced rows at a controlled rate. This made it possible for the control of weeds by horse-drawn hoe, reducing the need for farm labourers. Before the improvements of machinery, most of the local villagers would have had to help out on ...

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