People started using Selective Breeding, like getting two of the biggest animals of the same species and breeding them to get a huge baby of the animal, and by doing so creating more meat for the industrial cities as well as for them selves.
Despite the criticism that the agricultural revolution started in the 16th Century, it is still argued that the English agricultural revolution happened in the Century or so after 1750. One obvious reason behind the argument is the fact that an expanding population from this time on was largely fed by home production. In 1750 English population stood at about 5.7 million. It had probably reached this level before, in the roman period, then around 1300, and again in 1650. But at each of these periods, the population ceased to grow, essentially because agriculture could not respond to the pressure of feeding extra people. Contrary to expectations, however, population grew to unprecedented levels after 1750, reaching 16.6 million in 1850, and agricultural output expanded with it.
One reason output grew was through new farming systems involving the rotation of turnips and clover, although these were part of the general intensification of agricultural production, with more food being produced in the same area of land. Intensity was also increased by land reclamation, especially the draining of the fenlands of Eastern England, from the 17th Century onwards, when a low-intensity agricultural system based on fishing and fowling was replaced by a high-intensity system based on arable crops.
Other examples include the clearing of woodland and the reclamation of upland pastures. The extent of this activity is impossible to quantity, but may have affected some 30% of the agricultural area of England, from the mid 17th Century to the mid 19th Century.
The mix of crops also changed, replacing low-yielding types e.g. Rye, with high-yielding types e.g. Wheat and Barley. Cereal yields also increased, by about a quarter between 1700 and 1800, and then by about half between 1800 and 1850.
Fallow land (Common/Inert Land) was about 20% of the Arable area in England in 1700 declined to reach 4% in 1871.
The 19th Century was the Period of Crucial change. Before this time, farmers did not know formally of the existence of nitrogen, but we can interpret many of their actions in terms of the conservation of existing stocks of nitrogen, and the addition of new nitrogen to the soil. Existing stocks were exploited, for example, by ploughing up permanent pasture to grow cereals. Available nitrogen was conserved by feeding bullocks in stalls, collecting their manure (which is rich in nitrogen), and placing it where it was needed. Also, most importantly, new nitrogen was added to the soil using legumes - a class of plants that have bacteria attached to their roots, which convert atmospheric nitrogen into nitrates in the soil that can be used by whatever plants are grown there in the following few years.
Legumes had been sown since the middle Ages in the form of peas, beans and vetches, but from the mid-17th century farmers began to grow clover, both white and red, for the same purpose, and by the 19th century had dramatically increased the quantity of nitrogen in the soil available for cereal crops. In Norfolk, for example, between 1700 and 1850, the doubling of the area of legumes and a switch to clover tripled the rate of symbiotic nitrogen fixation.
This new system of farming was remarkable because it was sustainable; the output of food was increased dramatically, without endangering the long-term viability of English agriculture. But just as a sustainable agriculture had been achieved, the development of chemical fertilizers and other external inputs undermined this sustainability. An essentially organic agriculture was gradually replaced by a farming system that depended on energy-intensive inputs dependent on the exploitation of fossil fuels.
By Joshua Thompson
