To improve their productivity, the farmers needed to reorganise the land and one of the changes which they developed was called enclosure. The big landowners asked Parliament to pass an Act to allow them to enclose the commons and the common fields. The farmers started to swap the strips they had been used to so that they ended up with larger fields. An Enclosure Act divided up all the land and individual farmers would then look after their own patch. They also had more freedom to make improvements because only one farmer was responsible for making the decisions about how a field would be used, rather than many farmers who might disagree. Once the land was enclosed, farmers could introduce new methods of farming, with the idea of growing more food, so they all began experimenting with new ideas. This was good for the farmers but the common land which the poorer people had used to graze their animals was taken away from them for the farmers to use.
In the early 1700’s a retired English politician named Charles Townshend began to experiment with crop rotation. He realised that turnips or swedes could be used as the fourth crop in a four-year rotation system. Other crops grown were grains, especially wheat, oats, barley and clover or alfalfa. The grain crops were grown first when the soil was at its most fertile, followed by turnips which were used to feed the cattle in winter. Turnips absorb goodness from deep down in the soil and allow the top soil to rest. The fourth crop, clover, put nitrogen back into the soil, and also provided grazing for cattle and sheep so the farmer had well-fed animals to sell. Their droppings fertilized the ground so that a good wheat crop could be grown the next year. Because clover and swedes naturally replaced the nutrients which the wheat and barley had used up, a fallow year was no longer needed, and farmers could use their land all the time. One big advantage was that they could grow enough clover and turnips for animal fodder which would keep the animals fed throughout the winter months. Before this time, when fodder was in short supply, animals had to be slaughtered in the autumn and the meat was preserved with salt.
In the late 1700’s an English nobleman named Thomas Coke produced higher yields using ‘Turnip’ Townshend’s system, and encouraged other farmers to adopt the same method. It soon became widely used in England and, because both Townshend and Coke lived in Norfolk, the four-field rotation system became known as the Norfolk System.
- Advances in livestock breeding
At the same time, an English farmer called Robert Bakewell showed how livestock could be improved by intensively breeding animals with desirable traits. By careful breeding and better feeding, he developed stronger, healthier and heavier animals. He became best known for developing a breed of sheep called the Leicester, which could be raised for meat as well as for wool. This breed fattened quickly and could therefore be raised for slaughter at a reasonable cost. Because it was so cheap, mutton soon became the most popular meat in England. The Colling brothers bred the Durham shorthorn cattle. These ‘selectively-bred’ animals could then be sold to farmers to breed with their own livestock to produce improved animals – leading to more money for the farmers and increased profits.
- Invention of new farm equipment
The first important inventor of the Agricultural Revolution was Jethro Tull, an English gentleman farmer. He lived during the late 1600’s and early 1700’s but his inventions were not widely used until the late 1700’s. When Tull began his career, farmers still planted seeds by sowing – i.e. by scattering the seeds by hand. To try to increase the yields and conserve seed, inventors had tried to build a machine that would dig small trenches in the soil and deposit seeds in them. In 1701 Jethro Tull built the first seed drill that worked. This device made holes in rows along the field and the seeds were sown in the holes. It meant less seed was used and it gave space for the soil to be hoed between the rows. Hoe-ing kept down weeds and made the soil crumbly at the surface so that rain water could be absorbed. Jethro Tull also invented a horse-drawn mechanical hoe.
One of the most important inventions of the Agricultural Revolution was the toothed cotton gin, which was invented in the USA in 1793. This separated the cotton fibre from the seeds and made large-scale production of cotton possible. The first threshing machine was invented by Andrew Meikle in 1786. In 1834, Cyrus McCormick, an American inventor, patented the first successful harvesting machine or reaper. In the same year, two American brothers, John and Hiram Pitts patented a thresher, and a few years later, John Deere, an Illinois blacksmith invented a steel plough.
Steam powered tractors were developed during the mid 1800’s and some farmers in Europe began to use them, but because they were expensive and difficult to use, most farmers continued to use horses and mules to power their farm machines. The machines were not popular with the farm workers because they robbed them of tasks like threshing which employed them for most of the winter.
One of the Agricultural Revolution’s chief effects was the rapid growth of towns and cities in Europe and the USA during the 1800’s. Because of the new methods of farming and the introduction of new farming equipment, fewer people were needed to produce the foods and this is why farming families moved by the thousand to the towns and cities.
Sources :
SHP : Discovering the Past
The Children’s Britannica
Oxford Children’s Encyclopedia
The World Encylopedia
School notes
