Parliamentary Enclosure Acts.
While not specifically concerned with the Agricultural Revolution, the BBC Farm Series illustrates some of the innovations: playlists.
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Footnotes.
Endnotes.
Land Use in Britain (new window) – Bibliography.
Tables
Tenure table.
System of Estates table.
Briefer versions:
Land Use in Britain – Normans bring Feudalism.
Land Use in Britain – Beyond Early Modern.
Land Use in Britain – Bibliography.
Footnotes and endnotes are at the base of the page. Because the task of adopting the links from the original document would be onerous, the links do not work.
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD
This paper [submitted long ago for a Geography course] presents an overview of the exploitation of agricultural resources by the British population after the sixteenth century. During this period, agriculture has been transformed from an inefficient, subsistence activity that involved the majority of the population, to an efficient, mechanized industry that employs a minority of the population. Modern British agriculture can support a much larger population than that of the early sixteenth century, but cannot support the current population without importation of food from abroad.
By the sixteenth century marketing had become less localized, and transportation of livestock and food products had increased compared to the highly localized agriculture of the Middle Ages. After the seventeenth century imports and exports became increasingly important. Movements of produce gave an advantage to areas possessing rivers or sea-ports.
An interest in diversity and variety of foodstuffs, and in farming experimentation, innovation, and specialization, was typical of the years between 1500 and 1750 AD. A demand for quantity and uniformity led to more controlled experimentation after the mid-eighteenth century. The evolution of agricultural methods, which had begun in the sixteenth century, set the stage for an agrarian revolution.
By the sixteenth century, population expansion had brought areas of England to the brink of agricultural and agrarian crisis. A reciprocal interaction evolved between socio-economic status and the utilization of land. The legalities of landholding had gradually evolved since the feudal system of the Middle Ages. Possession of agricultural resources continued to underpin most wealth until the twentieth century. A tripartite agrarian socio-economic structure evolved – landlords, tenants, and laborers. A fourth class lay outside the agrarian economy – the unemployed, dispossessed, poor. Parliament was drawn into the sixteenth century agrarian crisis – various proposals were intended to regulate agriculture, and to ensure food and work for the disadvantaged T. Governments gradually gained some understanding of the complex agrarian issues involved, and developed more effective interventions – including less intervention.
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Footnotes.
Endnotes.
Landholding, tenures, and estates
Field systems, landholding, tenure, and estates were complex and regionally variable throughout the medieval and early modern period. Both field systems and settlement patterns were related to geology, topography, soils, climate, and previous agricultural settlement.
Locally, property rights had been determined by custom and, later, by common law. Medieval land disputes were addressed by the manorial courts. The system of landholding after the sixteenth century continued to evolve away from the feudal system of the early Middle Ages, when all land had belonged to the crown.
Field systems throughout the medieval period varied according to local community traditions that determined field layout, regulations governing cultivation patterns, and land ownership. Because much of the regional variation that typified the Middle Ages has been lost, historians and geographers cannot decipher all the previous community field-use systems. However, variants of most current land use systems were in place by the sixteenth century. Since feudal times common rights had been extended to those who possessed a cottage and some arable land. In areas with plentiful land, all inhabitants had access to common grazing. Rights to common pasture were unlimited in the less fertile pastoral areas of the Pennines and the northern counties, around the lowland forests, and in fen areas. Arable field systems can be classified according to availability and control of common land, and according to degree of regulation of cropping. In the Midlands, there appears to have been uniformity of topography, cultivation techniques, and property rights – subdivided fields cultivated in a three-field rotation with common grazing on the stubble and fallow. The fields surrounded nucleated settlements. However, this regularity was not ubiquitous. Another Midland system has been termed, ‘irregular commonfield with partially regulated cropping’ – holdings comprising a mixture of closes and strips. Crop rotations were flexible and adaptable across the system. Rights to the fallow strips available for common grazing were variable. In areas with ‘foldcourse’ very limited access to common grazing existed – the East Anglian foldcourse of western Norfolk. In the Chilterns, the Thames valley, and Essex, the entire field system was under communal control.
In the north and west of England, there was little population pressure on the land and pasture was relatively abundant – here the infield system consisted of arable commonfield, most of the outfield area was devoted to pasturing with occasional, temporary, conversion to segments of arable. As cropping became more intensive in the ‘Infield-outfield’ layouts just described, the outfield was enclosed and cultivated in severalty.[1]
The term ‘pays’ is borrowed from French geographers. It refers to the formation of distinctive countrysides by factors related to geology, topography, soil, and climate – and to differences in settlement history.[2]
Field topography at the beginning of the sixteenth century retained many very large open fields of the ‘champion’ country – cultivated in strips and separated by grassy ‘baulks.’ Groups of cultivated strips formed ‘furlongs’ or ‘lands.’ The strips were often ploughed in ridges and furrows to promote drainage. An open field subdivided into strips often contained a ‘close.’ The ‘close’ was a single-crop field, bounded by hedges, walls, or ditches – these predominantly rectangular enclosed fields came to dominate the landscape The widespread enclosure of fields ultimately wrought enormous agrarian impacts (this issue will be explored below.)
Feudal services required in exchange for tenure of land had included labours on the lord’s or church’s land, and a variety of payments. Termed ‘incidents of tenure,’ these were various ‘fines’ required by the lord – they were not rents in the modern sense, and were unrelated to the value of the land. Fines included entry fines when tenancies were inherited, ‘heriot’ fines when the tenant died, and ‘merchet’ fines when the lord’s daughter married.
Copyhold was the commonest form of ‘unfree’ tenure. ‘Unfree’ tenure conferred to tenants the least legal claim upon their lands. Tenure had long been regulated by local custom, but, by the end of the fifteenth century, the royal courts assisted in disputes over ‘villein’ tenure. Records were made of land transfer, and the term ‘villein tenure’ gradually changed to ‘copyhold.’ By the sixteenth century, copyhold tenancy allowed de facto freehold tenancy. The payments charged to a copyholder usually comprised a high entry fine or relief, but a low annual payment in lieu of labour services. Such payments reflected long established customs rather than the value of the land. However, lords could adjust entry fees to reflect the land’s value. Very little money was charged for the ‘incidents’ of free tenure. However, incidents remained important because they could be varied by the lord, while other services remained fixed. Most of the regular services and incidents of tenure had been ‘commuted’ to money payment of rents by the sixteenth century.
The tenants of church lands owed tithe, a tenth of their production, to the local parish priest or to a ‘lay impropriator’ who had acquired tithe rights through purchase of church lands. Tithes too eventually became commuted to a money payment, the modus[3].
Socage tenure, held mainly by the descendents of minor feudal knights, was common by the sixteenth century and conferred a free title, governed by common law rather than by custom. After 1540, all socage tenured land held in ‘fee simple’ could be inherited according to the tenant’s official bequest. The freehold tenant had the right to sell, lease, or bequeath the land as he chose.
A new form of tenure, the ‘beneficial lease’ became usual by the seventeenth century. After payment of a large initial entry fine, small annual payments ensured tenure for a period of years, a life, or several lives[4].
The system of estates (tabulated below) was rooted in common law; it was related to, and cut across, the system of tenures.
An economic and class system evolved out of the medieval hierarchical system that had governed land ownership and tenure, wealth, and status. Sources of income related to agriculture included land ownership (as a landlord), tenant farming, and farm laboring. Service related occupations included work as servants, clergy, craftsmen, professionals, and merchants.
Social status was determined by birth and social origins, and by property. There was a wide range of wealth within each class, and wealth enabled mobility, usually after one generation, between status groups. Ranked from lowest to highest on the agricultural hierarchy were: laborer, husbandman, yeoman / gentleman, esquire, knight, baron, earl, duke, and monarch. The ‘/ ’ indicates the fundamental social dividing line in class structure. Yeomen held land valued at £2 per annum, and enjoyed minor political rights. However, yeomen were more likely to perform physical labor on their lands, and were less educated than gentlemen (probably less than 50% of yeomen were literate in the sixteenth century.) Gentlemen represented only 2% of the population, but owned a quarter to a third of all farmland by the early sixteenth century. Better educated and wealthier than yeomen, they farmed their own lands, unlike the land-owning classes socially superior to them.
The occupational label ‘farmer’ was not widespread until the eighteenth century – prior to this, the terms denoting community status were used. (For simplicity, the general term farmer will be used in this paper to denote agriculturalists.) In addition to distinctions related to community status, specific terms were used to denote specialist agricultural activities: Drover, Grazier, Ploughman, Marshman, Shepherd, Gardener, and Fisherman.
More than 50% of ‘farmers’ were husbandmen – these were the descendents of medieval villeins, now the tenants of small subsistence-agriculture farms. Others descended from villeins were not fortunate enough to have retained tenure of sufficient land to meet subsistence needs – cottagers, laborers, outservants, and paupers – they represented over 50% of the population by 1688. In the 1520’s approximately 20% to 25% of the population had worked as agricultural laborers[5]. Much of this increased percentage of population displaced from the land can be attributed to enclosure and engrossing (this important topic will be discussed in detail below.) Because there were few commodities available for purchase with disposable income, many farm labourers practised voluntary underemployment – as wages rose, they worked less – generating a backward sloping labour curve[6].
The sixteenth century was characterized by shifts toward agricultural specialization in crops and animal husbandry, an increase in farming for profit, and a series of poor harvests. These agricultural trends, coupled with dense population in some counties[i], set the stage for agrarian crises and parliamentary intervention. In this complex situation, much blame was misdirected at the burgeoning wool industry and the sheep-keeper.
Agricultural innovations were possible for those farmers whose ensured tenure, large acreage, and established wealth freed them from the need to farm solely for subsistence. The farmer’s level of literacy affected exposure to, and willingness to adopt, agricultural innovations. The basic economic principles related to ‘economies of scale’ apply to agrarian profits. The size of a farm alters economic profits in relation to threshold subsistence levels, and in response to fluctuating harvests. The tenants or owners of larger holdings enjoyed the additional capacity that permitted introduction of experimental or non-subsistence crops. For arable crops, returns on invested capital could only be obtained after the harvest. Small-scale farmers faced an additional problem beyond growing adequate food for subsistence – they lacked the assets to store their produce, and were forced to sell their crops at harvest time when prices were lower. Owners of larger farms could store their surplus until market prices were more favorable, thus reaping greater profits.
In general, the larger the farming enterprise, whether its primary product was arable or pastoral, the greater its elasticity of supply. Larger operations could more easily adjust the quantity and nature of their output in response to market demands. Neither arable nor livestock farmers could alter production quickly in response to short-term price changes – so, the supply of farm produce was inelastic in the short-term. Prices varied inversely with supply, dropping in years of abundant harvest, and rising when harvests were poor. The situation was precarious for small-scale, subsistence level farmers because they were forced to buy high priced produce at times of poor harvest – both food for personal consumption, and grain to sow for next year’s crop or fodder for their livestock. Poor harvests actually favored farmers with larger holdings because their surplus crops could be sold at premium prices. Those who owned large farms could easily meet their needs for food and plant crops or rear livestock that would fetch high prices at market[7]. The economic imbalance between large and small farms resulted in the acquisition of small holdings by those farmers profiting from their control of large acreage – thus, the rich got richer. Engrossing, the absorption of small farms by large, displaced many from the land and increased the numbers of poorly paid agricultural laborers.
By 1850, leasehold had become the commonest form of tenure, with most English farmers renting their lands for periods of years from landlord owners. Common rights had been eliminated, and landless laborers were employed annually or piecemeal to work the farms[8].
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Footnotes.
Endnotes.
Enclosure and Engrossing
Common rights were extended to those who possessed a cottage and some arable land – in areas with plentiful land, all inhabitants had access to common grazing. Rights to common pasture were unlimited in the less fertile pastoral areas of the Pennines and the northern counties, around the lowland forests, and in fen areas. Despite losses due to coastal erosion in some areas[ii], large areas of saltmarsh were reclaimed for grazing[iii]. Grazing land was increasingly scarce in all heavily populated mixed-farming districts and in some pastoral areas of the west Midlands[9].
Two land-management processes that had elicited little or no complaint during the Middle Ages when common-land was plentiful, became the focus of considerable dissension in the sixteenth century. Enclosure of land – whether in common fields, meadows, or pastures – eliminated common-grazing rights. Population growth had stimulated enclosure because the supply of vacant or waste land was becoming exhausted in some areas. Prosperity for the individual farmer lay in acquiring control of adequate acreage – the profits to be made from wool added incentive to enclose acreage. An individual often amalgamated strips of land by purchase or exchange, then enclosed the land within fences and hedges. Enclosure increased the value of land for the farmer who had gained control of land use – he could raise more livestock since fodder and stubble were no longer shared, or he could plant a more profitable crop. The additional livestock were often sheep, profitable by virtue of their wool. Landlords profited when their tenants enclosed fields because higher rents could be collected on the more valuable land.
The economic and social consequences of enclosure differed from one region to another. If adequate common-land remained for the grazing of other villagers’ livestock there was no outcry, but riots and disturbances ensued in counties where enclosure caused hardship by depriving the community’s livestock of grazing. The greatest problems occurred in lowland villages with inadequate quantities of common-land, or in those with an expanding population that had relied upon previously large areas of common-field. Sixteenth century enclosures aroused considerable indignation, even riots, in the East Midlands. However, enclosure caused no difficulties in the sparsely populated, pastoral Pennines. Most land had already been enclosed without consternation in Essex, Suffolk, Kent, Hertfordshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall[10].
The acreages affected by enclosure were not accurately recorded at the time. Academic estimates, based mostly on official government enquiries into enclosure, suggest that only 2 per cent of the land was enclosed in the sixteenth century. Estimates conclude that enclosure jumped to 24 per cent of land in the seventeenth century, 13 per cent in the eighteenth century, and 11.4 per cent from 1800 to 1914[11].
Engrossing involved the consolidation of two or more farms into a single farm. Unused farmhouses were abandoned to fall into decay, or rented as cottages with small attached parcels of land. Engrossing often interfered with the access routes to common grazing fields. Enclosure and engrossing were independent processes – both procedures could affect farms, or one transformation could proceed without the other. Both processes caused depopulation, but engrossing created a greater problem because it displaced people directly from the land[12].
Early in the enclosure-engrossing crisis, parliament attempted a series of ineffectual interventions. The control of enclosures was moved to the courts of the Exchequer and the Chancery courts. A number of individual suits were tried in the courts; the cases were usually being settled in favor of landlords who presented enclosure as an agricultural advance or necessity. Pastoralists successfully argued that their soils were not suited to legislated conversion to tillage. By 1630, a system of land claims management evolved that required individual agreements to be negotiated locally. After 1700, parliament intervened much less in production issues, but shifted its focus to markets, imposing tariffs and bounties.[13] However, some lands were enclosed according to Acts of Parliament after 1750 – probably spurred by landed gentry who held seats in Parliament.
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Footnotes.
Endnotes.
Markets
Markets function to redistribute commodities from suppliers to producers. At the outset of the sixteenth century England had about 1800 market towns, supporting populations calculated to be around 10,000. Each town held markets once or twice weekly for its small hinterland of about 10 miles radius. There was little inter-market trading except during fairs held once or twice annually; goods from a wider area were traded at the market fairs. Prices were governed by customs and regulations, not by supply and demand. While private transactions occurred outside the public market, middlemen were despised for elevating prices and creating dearth.
After the end of the eighteenth century, few market towns remained but urbanization had greatly increased. Most commodities were traded at a national level, some items were transported large distance from regions of specialized agriculture. Transportation was commonly along rivers and newly constructed waterways, along much improved roads, and eventually by railroad. Competitive bid-pricing predominated, the variety and quantity of traded goods had vastly increased, and middlemen abounded (practicing ‘forward buying’ of grain, and using long distance credit.)
Livestock, being able to transport themselves, and animal products, fetching higher prices per weight, were the first commodities moved from localized markets, through inter-markets, to national markets (by the seventeenth century.) Grain was traded at the inter-market level by the sixteenth century[14].
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Footnotes.
Endnotes.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production
Almost all agriculture in the early sixteenth century was mixed-farming, it combined both arable and livestock husbandry. The crops grown and animals raised varied from region to region, and from one farm to another within a region. The enormous diversity of agrarian structures makes it difficult for historical geographers to move from regional descriptions of soils, topography, and agricultural methods to a regional analysis of complex agrarian relationships. English agriculture gradually moved from the subsistence-level small farm, characterized by trade of surplus at local markets, to more efficient regional agricultural specialization supplying national and international markets.
Regardless of the local soils, climate, settlement patterns and community organization, all farmers faced similar agricultural challenges. The main obstacles to food production continued to be loss of soil fertility, the vagaries of weather, and losses due to weeds, animal pests, and diseases of plants and animals. After the sixteenth century, limited availability of land became an increasingly widespread problem.
Plants require soluble salts of nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, and trace elements for their growth. All essential elements except nitrogen are supplied by the slow decomposition of the soil’s parent rock[15]. Because plants cannot utilize atmospheric nitrogen, their roots extract nitrate salts directly from the soil. In a natural cycle, the death and decay of plants in situ returns usable nitrogen to the soil, and lightning storms convert atmospheric nitrogen to nitrates, adding soluble nitrogen. The removal of plants, by cropping, depletes the soil of essential nitrates. Ploughed-in stubble, marling, and manuring improved soil fertility. Addition of lime or marl does not add soil nutrients, but reduces soil acidity and improves soil structure – enabling soil bacteria to release nutrients from manure and crop residues[16]. Addition of ‘recycled’ nitrogen to the fields, by grazing livestock or by application of transported manure, restores soil nitrogen[17]. The introduction of convertible husbandry improved retention of fecal nitrogen. Fields were no longer exclusively used as grazing or permanent arable, but were rotated both for pasture and tillage. Land use was switched between grass pasture and corn, in a simple rotation where grazing was allowed for many years, or in more sophisticated shorter rotations through grass ‘leys’[18].
Although the exact mechanism was unknown, early farmers understood the principle that a soil must ‘rest’ to recover its fertility, and that manure replenished soils. Fields that had been under prolonged tillage must lie uncultivated for one or more years to recover their fertility. The principle of allowing fields to lie fallow was practiced by the Roman Age – or earlier, if Bronze or Iron Age fields were abandoned only briefly before being returned to cultivation. A very important agricultural advance lay in the discovery that nitrogen-fixing leguminous plants – pastures of clover, and pulse crops of peas and beans – could restore soil fertility while also providing a fodder or food crop.
By the sixteenth century, fallow fields were often ‘ley ground,’ destined to be ploughed again after several years as unused ploughed land, grass, or leguminous pasture. The first crop replanted on ley ground varied across Britain. In some areas, the most valued crop was sown first – after fallow, or after a pulse crop of peas or beans. A typical rotation succession might be wheat, barley, oats, then back to fallow[19]. In other areas, particularly the fens, oats or coleseed (rapeseed) were sown as the usual post-fallow crop.[20] The ‘Norfolk four-course’ crop rotation was not common until about 1800, but represented an important agricultural breakthrough, extending the advantages of convertible, or ley, husbandry. Not applied to the same degree in all regions, the ‘classic’ Norfolk four-course rotated from nitrogen-restoring grass or clover pasture, through nitrogen-demanding wheat, to nitrogen-maintaining root fodder (turnips or swedes), to nitrogen-depleting barley or oats – and back to grass or clover.[21]
Nitrogen continued to be the limiting element for soil fertility until the development of modern fertilizers. It has been estimated that, by the mid-nineteenth century, the long-cultivated lands of Britain had been depleted of two-thirds of their original soil nitrogen[22]. Fertilizer imports from abroad began in the early nineteenth century, supplementing manure and ploughed-in stubble as sources of nitrogen[23].
While nothing can be done to alter weather, irrigation and drainage regulate soil wetness. Drought was problematic for dairy farmers if fodder supply was compromised. Conversely, excessively wet soil was associated with diseases – foot-rot in sheep, and plant root ‘suffocation,’[24] and fungal seed and plant diseases. Farmers of the sixteenth century faced greater problems than modern farmers at seeding-time because their lands were relatively poorly drained. Attempts to reduce fungal diseases included steeping the seed in brine, lime, blood, or urine[25]. Early attempts to control wetness involved the ploughing of deep ridges and furrows, trenching, and the digging of ditches. Hollow drains, filled with bushes or stones and covered with soil, first appeared in the seventeenth century. The modern subsurface ‘tile’ drain was not invented until the nineteenth century.
Crop rotation and fallow not only permitted a replenishment of soil nitrogen, it facilitated control of weeds, pests, and pathogens. Rotation of crops interrupted the establishment of species-specific pathogens. Annual weeds required laborious removal during crop growth. Weeds, particularly perennial weeds, were kept down by repeated ploughing during fallow. Ploughing also disrupted the burrows of animal pests. Staddle barns protected stored grain out of reach of vermin – mice and rats were defeated by the overhang of the mushroom shaped stones that supported granaries.
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Footnotes.
Endnotes.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture
Almost all agriculture in the early sixteenth century was mixed-farming, combining both arable and livestock husbandry. Grazing flocks and herds provided manure to the meadows and kept down bracken and sedge grasses. Beyond the benefit of droppings from grazing animals, little or nothing was done to improve the fertility of commons. Strict penalties against anyone who allowed a sick animal onto common pastures helped to reduce the transmission of infection among stock.
The daily and annual rhythms related to raising crops versus animals differed. Arable husbandry produces more food per acre for human consumption than does animal husbandry, however maintenance of some livestock remained essential to the farmer of early modern Britain. Aside from meat, dairy products, eggs, and skins, animals were essential for draught work until the industrial revolution, and for their manure until the twentieth century.
In August or September arable land was ploughed. Land that had been used for pasture was ploughed up to five or six times, while arable fields were ploughed about four times. In wet areas, several feet separated the top of a ploughed ridge from the adjacent drainage furrow. The soil was harrowed after ploughing to create a tilth onto which seed was broadcast-sown with one of the winter cereals in September or October. Farmers selectively sowed the seeds most likely to yield a good harvest. The winter cereals were wheat or rye, or a mixture of both, called ‘maslin’ or ‘mixlyn.’ If a spring crop was planned, the plough clods were left to be broken by winter frosts, then harrowed in the spring. From February to April, when the soil had warmed enough for an adequate tilth, the spring crops were sown – barley, or six-rowed bigg in the north; oats; and, peas and beans. Between sowing and harvesting, the fields were cleared of nutrient-competing weeds.
Hay was harvested in June and July – scythe-mown grass was raked into ‘cocks’ then stored in the barn or in straw-thatched ‘ricks.’ The cereals were harvested in August or September. Winter grains were harvested before spring crops. Wheat and rye were ‘reaped’ with a small sickle, barley and oats were ‘mown’ with a larger scythe. The cut stalks were bound into sheaves, stacked into ‘stooks,’ and left in the field for a week or so to dry. Later the stooks were stored in a barn, or piled into straw-thatched ‘stacks.’ The fields were gleaned after the harvest – scoured for fallen grain – a laborious process performed by women and children. The labor of marling, creating a fine tilth, sowing, hoeing and pulling of turnips was performed during arable slack-times[26].
Throughout the year, grain was threshed as needed – this was a skilled procedure whereby grain was separated from the stalk by beating with a wooden flail. The grain was then winnowed to remove chaff, and passed through a sieve or corn screen to separate valuable grain from the seeds of nuisance weeds.
Pastures required little attention beyond clearing weeds, like thistles and docks, and removing pests such as moles. Livestock required fodder over the winter months – hay, softened barley, peas and beans, carrots, and turnips for most livestock; and, hay and oats for horses. As much as twenty per cent of the arable harvest was reserved as fodder for livestock. Although livestock husbandry required less labor than arable farming, the livestock required considerable attention – young animals were born in the spring, and must soon be weaned. Young male livestock not required for breeding purposes were castrated. Sheep were washed and clipped in June. From May to October sheep were folded, and cattle were sometimes tethered, on arable land – usually on the fallow. Animals were bred in September and October (winter cereals were sown in these months.) Pigs, hens, geese, ducks, bees, and sometimes pigeons, were also raised. Depending upon location, a farmer might also tend a kitchen garden, an orchard, or a section of woodland.
Regular daily chores included the cutting of wood for fuel, and the maintenance and repair of buildings, fences, hedges, and ditches. On a daily basis, dairy cattle and sheep were milked in the morning and the evening – the milk was processed by women into butter and cheese. Many farmers, particularly those who specialized in raising livestock, had time to supplement their incomes through cottage industry, making crafts, or working at a trade.[27]
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Footnotes.
Endnotes.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750
A resurgence of focus on farming techniques, like that of the thirteenth century, began again around 1560. Many books were publishedP in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries on topics related to agricultural techniques and crop species. While some innovations and recommendations were useful, others were ill-advised or not applicable to regions with different soils, climates, or agricultural infrastructure. Publications shifted emphasis from farming activities to agricultural profits in the eighteenth century.
Population increase, similar to the increase prior to the Black Death, threatened to outstrip the existing agricultural output. Both the expanding numbers of townspeople, and the increasing numbers living on the land, needed more food. Demand was both for more food and a for a greater variety of crops. The main obstacles to increasing food production were limited availability of land, loss of soil fertility, the vagaries of weather, and losses due to weeds, animal pests, and diseases of plants and animals. The interest of many became focussed on the optimization of food production and agricultural profits – many, but not all.
Some farmers worked less ambitiously and less efficiently than others – then, as now. Failure of a farmer to clear weeds, molehills, or anthills from his own land could adversely affect the crops of a neighboring farmer. Intended “floating”f of meadowland to improve its fertility was sometimes thwarted by millers who re-routed watercourses – often causing collateral damage to crops by flooding cultivated farmland. Many tenant farmers who might otherwise have improved their land or their farming techniques were deterred by short leases or by the refusal of landlords to compensate them for improvements[28]. (A similar problem currently faces peasant farmers in China.)[29] Many farmers continued to cultivate the land according to the inefficient techniques and traditions of their forebears, so that innovations diffused slowly.
Tillage could not be changed quickly; the need for cycles of fallow contributed to the difficulty in quickly changing crop type. The restrictions of an annual planting season, limited capacity of soils to support different crop species, and fixed capital (field layout, buildings, and tools) could only be overcome through time, labor, and financial outlay.
Larger operations could more easily adjust the quantity and nature of their output in response to market demands. Neither arable nor livestock farmers could alter production quickly in response to short-term price changes – so, the supply of farm produce was inelastic in the short-term. Those who owned large farms could easily meet their needs for food and experiment with crops or livestock that could be expected to fetch high prices at market[30].
Difficulties in converting to alternate crops arose because some plant species required extensive ploughing, marling, and manuring before a field could produce a harvest. Such an investment was only worthwhile for larger farms producing non-subsistence marketable produce and for highly profitable crops – an example was woad (famous because Pict warriors smeared their bodies with the blue dye before entering battle.)
Woad, employed after the mid-sixteenth century as dye for the growing wool-textile industry, was labor intensive but very profitable, yielding six times the profit of “corn.”c Because woad required a deep, well-drained soil, much cultivation of woad was sited on alluvial land near rivers. The dye-stuff was grown in several counties[31][iv]. The extensive “marling, stirring, and soiling of the ground[32]” required to cultivate woad improved the soil, resulting in better crops of wheat and barley after woad farming. Woad’s profitability led to such extensive farming that a proclamation limiting its cultivation was issued in the famine year of 1587. The restrictions were removed in 1589[33]. The rapid policy reversal typifies one of the problems encountered in agricultural legislation of the day – restrictions were often imposed in response to problems that had disappeared before the interventions, problems caused by temporary climatic conditions.
It was not effortless to convert from arable to pastoral farming. Soil required labor to sow grass or clover and remove unwanted weeds. However, the raising of livestock required less effort and less manpower than tillage, particularly when livestock were managed within closed fields. Invested capital could be regained when fattened livestock or animal produce (dairy products, eggs, wool, etc.) were sold – thus, livestock farmers enjoyed more flexible cash flow, and the opportunity to sell produce when market prices were favorable. Most agriculture of the period was mixed-farming – a blend of crop and livestock husbandry – the livestock provided essential manure for maintenance of field fertility, and horses and oxen provided draught labor.
The interest in diversity and variety of foodstuffs, and experimentation, innovation, and specialization, was typical of the age – however, experimental approaches were not based on scientific knowledge, and had variable success. Innovation was supplanted by a demand for quantity and uniformity in the centuries after 1750 AD[34]. Trends were away from the small-scale subsistence farming of medieval village communities. Compared to the Middle Ages, transportation, importation, and exportation, of livestock and food products had increased – favoring those areas with rivers and sea-ports.
Several non-staple crops were cultivated more extensively after the sixteenth century. These included the dye-plants madder, weld (dyer’s weed), and saffron (also used as a culinary) – safflower was introduced in 1673, but could not compete with imports from Germany. Potatoes, so tolerant of poor soils, were introduced from the New World. A less fortuitous arrival, tobacco, was also introduced from the Americas. Tobacco was first cultivated in England around 1571. It was grown widely – in gardens, yards, and farms – despite efforts to limit its cultivation in order to ensure a market for Virginia tobacco[v]. The hop was another profitable crop plant introduced during the period. Hops were employed in the brewing of beer. Plants used in the production of cloth, baskets, and rope were quite widely grown – teasels, osiers, hemp, and flax. Flax provided not only linen and linseed oil, but the chaff and stalks were used for fuel. Hemp yielded canvas, strong ropes, oil, and seed that was fed to poultry. Cattle cakes, and better yields of oil, were derived from rapeseed, a plant indigenous to the seashores – perhaps introduced there by Dutch immigrants[35].
Dutch immigrants were also partly responsible for the expansion of market and kitchen gardening after the sixteenth century. Beginning in the thirteenth century, onion, leek, and cabbage seed had been sold at markets. The poor had grown vegetables for themselves and for the trade of any surplus – peascods, leeks, onions, parley, chervil, and cabbages (referred to as a bed of ‘wortes’ grown by Chaucer’s poor widow.) Market gardening spread rapidly, particularly in areas surrounding London and other large towns. Prior to this, the gardeners of royal palaces, large houses, colleges, and monasteries had traded fruit and vegetables[36]. Henry VIII’s gardener planted England’s first gooseberries, probably introduced apricots, and imported French grafts of cherry, pear, and apple[37]. By the reign of Charles I, many varieties of apples, pears, cherries and apricots were cultivated[vi].
Dutch and Flemish immigrants to East Anglia brought expertise to Britain – and sold “tons of roots” to the poor of London during the famine years of the 1590’s. During times of high grain prices, vegetables saved the poor from starvation. Vegetables were disdained by the upper classes who preferred to eat meat. The success of the Dutch and other market gardeners encouraged others to turn to cultivation by spade. Market gardeners ultimately grew a great variety of plants – cabbages and colewarts; onions and leeks; carrots, turnips, swedes, and parsnips; peas and beans; cucumbers, asparagus, celery, radishes, and lettuce; culinary herbs and spices; seeds; gooseberries, currants, and tree-fruit. Market gardening continued to spread in the seventeenth century, but the stimulus had changed – slower population growth, decreasing farm incomes, falling grain prices, and consumers’ tastes for a wider range of foods [38].
The planting of fruit orchards became more widespread, particularly after formation of the Commonwealth. Both Royalist and Roundhead soldiers discovered the joys of local cider when fighting in the West Country during the Civil War of the 1640’s. Increased cider consumption freed acreage from barley production and reduced the depletion of woodlands – wood was needed as fuel for the conversion of barley to malt. Perry was a pear beverage. The spread of orchards continued to be encouraged during the Restoration. Effort was expended on the improvement of cider, and on encouraging the export of cider. Attempts were made to distill brandy from cider in the latter 1690’s, when imports of French spirits had been banned[39].
Some vegetables were raised originally by market gardeners, but were later adopted as field crops – caraway, mustard seed, onions, liquorice root, and carrots. Liquorice was grown for medicinal use on numerous small acreages in favorable soils (deep, rich, easily worked soils.)[vii] Carrots were eaten by man and used as cattle fodder and poultry feed. At Fulham, near London, a combination of spade gardening and ploughing was used in fields that were exploited by an occasional switch to wheat-raising.[40]
The agricultural diversity and experimentation of the period between 1500 and 1750 AD was typified not only by the range of crops, but by the number of varieties of each crop species. The most common arable crops were wheat; rye; barley, bere, or bigg; oats or haver; beans and peas – each was represented by several species, often grown in different areas. Barley was the most commonly cultivated white grain – it grew more readily than wheat in the less fertile common fields, and provided bread, malt, and animal fodder. The barley grown in Lincolnshire and the Hertfordshire Chilterns was mostly used for the brewing of beer. Oat varieties were the only cereals that could be grown on the poorest and wettest soils[viii]. Buckwheat, vetches, tares, and lentils were also grown in some locations. Buckwheat would grow on barren, sandy soils that could support little else. The largest acreages of “French wheat” were on the sands and brecks of Norfolk and Suffolk, where the poultry industry used the buckwheat to fatten chickens, geese, turkeys, and ducks[41].
Turnips, and clover, were grown commonly in Norfolk by 1750. Turnips required a fine tilth and low soil acidity, but their deep root system enabled them to concentrate soil nutrients into their bulbous root. The nutrients could be recycled as manure through feeding to livestock, or left in the soil. The combination of marling and turnip crops was used to reclaim much heathland by the 1840s. The turnip played an important role in the Norfolk four-course crop rotation. The Swedish turnip, or swede, was grown for human consumption, but turnips were grown as high-yield cattle fodder[42].
Livestock – cattle, dairy cows, sheep, goats, rabbits, poultry, pigs, ponies and horses – were initially represented by an enormous variety of breeds (beginning in the eighteenth century selective breeding for advantageous traits reduced their variety.) Bee-keeping was ubiquitous, and the gentry kept game and raised doves (often to the detriment of their neighbors’ crops.) Animal husbandry benefited both from advances in grazing techniques and from increased acreage due to extensive reclamation of marsh and saltmarsh. Pasturing utilized either dry upland meadowland suited to hay production, or superior water meadows. Dry meadows must be manured every few years to support their being mowed for hay. The superiority of natural water meadows led to the practice of “floating”f upland meadows. First introduced in western England, floating provided early fodder for the increasing numbers of livestock. The procedure was expensive and was initially confined to the estates of wealthy and literate landowners – however, the obvious success of winter-flooding of pastures led to its more widespread adoption.
Agriculture was not efficient by modern standards, but innovation was widespread and little was wasted. Wastelands being brought under cultivation were “denshired” – turf was pared off, piled into heaps, burned, and the ashes scattered across the land. Marl was transported from ancient marlpits[ix]; seasand was hauled inland; and, limestone and beach-pebbles were burned in field-kilns – all were sown into fields or cast across the soil. Anything and everything was used to manure the land or enrich the soil. The townsfolk of Newcastle-on-Tyne piled their ashes and dung on a heap in the middle of town – the local farmers transported the refuse away once a year to be spread as manure (probably not a moment too soon for the townsfolk.) London’s stable dung, and the droppings of cattle sheep, goats, pigs, and horses – and, best-of-all pigeons – were assiduously collected and selectively spread. Other “unlikely” sources of manure were river sludge and detritus from the cleansing of fish ponds. Bracken was strewn across laneways to be trodden down before being spread over fields. Malt dust, soap ashes, brine, hair, decaying fish, offal, entrails, and blood were all used as manure[43]. Phew! The infamous lack of British attention (then) to personal hygiene seems less offensive in view of the reeking backdrop of the environment.
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
Footnotes.
Endnotes.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution
A complex accumulation of incremental changes contributed to the revolution in agricultural efficiency that accelerated in the nineteenth century.
The total acreage under cultivation increased through reclamation of marsh, saltmarsh, rough pastures, heathlands, and upland wastes, and through further clearance of woodland. However, agricultural technological advances played a greater rôle in increased productivity – for example, windmills aided the continuing drainage of reclaimed fenlands; and, hollow drains, and later tile drains, improved the management of England’s heavy, wet soils.
Soil fertility was improved through preservation and restoration of soil nutrients, particularly nitrogen. Initially, ‘rest’ periods under fallow allowed soils to recuperate. Marling improved soil structure and pH balance, promoting regeneration of soil nitrogen and rendering soils suitable for ‘fussier’ crops. Changes in landholding and tenures, enclosure, and engrossing resulted in larger, capital-rich farms. The larger scale farmer was able to adopt innovations and to focus on efficiency, labor management, and profit. Convertible husbandry, combining arable, ‘ley fields,’ and increased livestock (aided by enclosure) improved the ‘recycling’ of nitrogen and increased productivity. Floating of meadows provided early fodder for increasing numbers of livestock. Stall feeding of livestock on fodder, and folding livestock overnight on arable fields, improved the distribution of manure. Ultimately, variations on the Norfolk four-course crop rotations, exploited leguminous and root-fodder crops to reduce or eliminate fallow. The sophisticated rotations, coupled with more advanced breeds of livestock, preserved soil fertility, produced greater yields of animal products, and increased the portion of acreage under tillage. Widening markets, improved transportation, and greater awareness of the optimum use of regional soils led to regional agricultural specialization. Although increasing acreage was devoted to profitable non-edible crops, new food crops were introduced, and more productive food-crops were grown in optimized proportions. Each advance increased product per acre per year.
Improvements in agricultural education aided more efficient farm and labor management. Agricultural manpower was supplemented by an increase in draught horses, by improved tools (including the seed drill and horse hoe), and by the eventual replacement of draught animals by machinery. The introduction of disease-resistant hybrids, chemical fertilizers (superphosphates were developed first), fungicides, and pesticides allowed further increases in productivity[44].
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Endnotes.
Footnotes
An interest in diversity and variety of foodstuffs, and in farming experimentation, innovation, and specialization, was typical of the years between 1500 and 1750 AD. A demand for quantity and uniformity led to more controlled experimentation after the mid-eighteenth century. The evolution of agricultural methods, which had begun in the sixteenth century, set the stage for an agrarian revolution.
By the sixteenth century, population expansion had brought areas of England to the brink of agricultural and agrarian crisis. A reciprocal interaction evolved between socio-economic status and the utilization of land. The legalities of landholding had gradually evolved since the feudal system of the Middle Ages. Possession of agricultural resources continued to underpin most wealth until the twentieth century. A tripartite agrarian socio-economic structure evolved – landlords, tenants, and laborers. A fourth class lay outside the agrarian economy – the unemployed, dispossessed, poor. Parliament was drawn into the sixteenth century agrarian crisis – various proposals were intended to regulate agriculture, and to ensure food and work for the disadvantaged T. Governments gradually gained some understanding of the complex agrarian issues involved, and developed more effective interventions – including less intervention.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Footnotes.
Endnotes.
Landholding, tenures, and estates
Field systems, landholding, tenure, and estates were complex and regionally variable throughout the medieval and early modern period. Both field systems and settlement patterns were related to geology, topography, soils, climate, and previous agricultural settlement.
Locally, property rights had been determined by custom and, later, by common law. Medieval land disputes were addressed by the manorial courts. The system of landholding after the sixteenth century continued to evolve away from the feudal system of the early Middle Ages, when all land had belonged to the crown.
Field systems throughout the medieval period varied according to local community traditions that determined field layout, regulations governing cultivation patterns, and land ownership. Because much of the regional variation that typified the Middle Ages has been lost, historians and geographers cannot decipher all the previous community field-use systems. However, variants of most current land use systems were in place by the sixteenth century. Since feudal times common rights had been extended to those who possessed a cottage and some arable land. In areas with plentiful land, all inhabitants had access to common grazing. Rights to common pasture were unlimited in the less fertile pastoral areas of the Pennines and the northern counties, around the lowland forests, and in fen areas. Arable field systems can be classified according to availability and control of common land, and according to degree of regulation of cropping. In the Midlands, there appears to have been uniformity of topography, cultivation techniques, and property rights – subdivided fields cultivated in a three-field rotation with common grazing on the stubble and fallow. The fields surrounded nucleated settlements. However, this regularity was not ubiquitous. Another Midland system has been termed, ‘irregular commonfield with partially regulated cropping’ – holdings comprising a mixture of closes and strips. Crop rotations were flexible and adaptable across the system. Rights to the fallow strips available for common grazing were variable. In areas with ‘foldcourse’ very limited access to common grazing existed – the East Anglian foldcourse of western Norfolk. In the Chilterns, the Thames valley, and Essex, the entire field system was under communal control.
In the north and west of England, there was little population pressure on the land and pasture was relatively abundant – here the infield system consisted of arable commonfield, most of the outfield area was devoted to pasturing with occasional, temporary, conversion to segments of arable. As cropping became more intensive in the ‘Infield-outfield’ layouts just described, the outfield was enclosed and cultivated in severalty.[1]
The term ‘pays’ is borrowed from French geographers. It refers to the formation of distinctive countrysides by factors related to geology, topography, soil, and climate – and to differences in settlement history.[2]
Field topography at the beginning of the sixteenth century retained many very large open fields of the ‘champion’ country – cultivated in strips and separated by grassy ‘baulks.’ Groups of cultivated strips formed ‘furlongs’ or ‘lands.’ The strips were often ploughed in ridges and furrows to promote drainage. An open field subdivided into strips often contained a ‘close.’ The ‘close’ was a single-crop field, bounded by hedges, walls, or ditches – these predominantly rectangular enclosed fields came to dominate the landscape The widespread enclosure of fields ultimately wrought enormous agrarian impacts (this issue will be explored below.)
Tenure
– tenancy access to land from feudal to early modern times. (after Overton, Revolution, p. 32.)
|
||||
Free tenure: Services fixed in extent and duration.
|
Unfree
tenure: ‘Villein’ or base tenure. The nature of the services due (to the lord
or church) was not fixed. Initially,
the villein tenant had no legal right to land, later de facto rights were bestowed according to the customs of
particular manors
|
|||
Chivalry: Knight tenure. The knight
held land in return for an obligation to provide men-at-arms for the king.
|
Spiritual:
Spiritual and religious services were provided by the church in
exchange for their lands.
|
Socage:
A variety of services were provided by petty
knights, including working on the lands of the superior lord.
|
Copyhold:
By the end of the fifteenth century, the royal courts assisted in disputes over villein tenure. Records were made of land transfer, and the name of villein tenure gradually changed to ‘copyhold.’ Tenure continued to be regulated by local custom. |
At
will:
Early in the feudal period the villein held lands
in return for any services that the lord demanded ‘at will.’ This form of tenure became less and less
frequent.
|
Crown
& Private lands: Although the crown continued to own land, most land came to be held
in private ownership. Several monarchs
sold ‘crown’ lands in order to generate revenue.
|
Beneficial
lease: Long term leases, permitting land to be held by
successive generations, became usual after the seventeenth century
|
|||
Copyhold was the commonest form of ‘unfree’ tenure. ‘Unfree’ tenure conferred to tenants the least legal claim upon their lands. Tenure had long been regulated by local custom, but, by the end of the fifteenth century, the royal courts assisted in disputes over ‘villein’ tenure. Records were made of land transfer, and the term ‘villein tenure’ gradually changed to ‘copyhold.’ By the sixteenth century, copyhold tenancy allowed de facto freehold tenancy. The payments charged to a copyholder usually comprised a high entry fine or relief, but a low annual payment in lieu of labour services. Such payments reflected long established customs rather than the value of the land. However, lords could adjust entry fees to reflect the land’s value. Very little money was charged for the ‘incidents’ of free tenure. However, incidents remained important because they could be varied by the lord, while other services remained fixed. Most of the regular services and incidents of tenure had been ‘commuted’ to money payment of rents by the sixteenth century.
The tenants of church lands owed tithe, a tenth of their production, to the local parish priest or to a ‘lay impropriator’ who had acquired tithe rights through purchase of church lands. Tithes too eventually became commuted to a money payment, the modus[3].
Socage tenure, held mainly by the descendents of minor feudal knights, was common by the sixteenth century and conferred a free title, governed by common law rather than by custom. After 1540, all socage tenured land held in ‘fee simple’ could be inherited according to the tenant’s official bequest. The freehold tenant had the right to sell, lease, or bequeath the land as he chose.
A new form of tenure, the ‘beneficial lease’ became usual by the seventeenth century. After payment of a large initial entry fine, small annual payments ensured tenure for a period of years, a life, or several lives[4].
The system of estates (tabulated below) was rooted in common law; it was related to, and cut across, the system of tenures.
Estates: principles governing duration of tenancy
from feudal to early modern times (after
Overton, Revolution, p. 33.)
|
|||||
Freehold – initially held only by
someone who had held free tenure.
These represented the minority
of estates.
|
Non-freehold
– the majority of estates – held in lieu of services to
landlords.
See: Escheat, Enfeoffment . |
||||
Life –
land could be held only for the life of a specified tenant. The tenancy had to be renegotiated at
intervals.
|
|||||
Fee
tail: Restrictions governed inheritance, usually through
direct descendants
|
Simple
fee:
Totality of ownership.
|
Of
grantee:
Land could be held only for the life of the
original tenant (grantee)
Beneficial leases were introduced in the
seventeenth century.
|
Pur autre
vie: Land could be held only for the life of the original
tenant, his wife, or heir.
|
At
will:
Land was held at the discretion of the lord, in
exchange for services at the lord’s demand.
The tenant had no legal rights to the land.
|
Years:
Land might be held for a term of several years,
but the tenant had no rights under the law (holding neither a recognised
tenure nor estate.)
|
Social status was determined by birth and social origins, and by property. There was a wide range of wealth within each class, and wealth enabled mobility, usually after one generation, between status groups. Ranked from lowest to highest on the agricultural hierarchy were: laborer, husbandman, yeoman / gentleman, esquire, knight, baron, earl, duke, and monarch. The ‘/ ’ indicates the fundamental social dividing line in class structure. Yeomen held land valued at £2 per annum, and enjoyed minor political rights. However, yeomen were more likely to perform physical labor on their lands, and were less educated than gentlemen (probably less than 50% of yeomen were literate in the sixteenth century.) Gentlemen represented only 2% of the population, but owned a quarter to a third of all farmland by the early sixteenth century. Better educated and wealthier than yeomen, they farmed their own lands, unlike the land-owning classes socially superior to them.
The occupational label ‘farmer’ was not widespread until the eighteenth century – prior to this, the terms denoting community status were used. (For simplicity, the general term farmer will be used in this paper to denote agriculturalists.) In addition to distinctions related to community status, specific terms were used to denote specialist agricultural activities: Drover, Grazier, Ploughman, Marshman, Shepherd, Gardener, and Fisherman.
More than 50% of ‘farmers’ were husbandmen – these were the descendents of medieval villeins, now the tenants of small subsistence-agriculture farms. Others descended from villeins were not fortunate enough to have retained tenure of sufficient land to meet subsistence needs – cottagers, laborers, outservants, and paupers – they represented over 50% of the population by 1688. In the 1520’s approximately 20% to 25% of the population had worked as agricultural laborers[5]. Much of this increased percentage of population displaced from the land can be attributed to enclosure and engrossing (this important topic will be discussed in detail below.) Because there were few commodities available for purchase with disposable income, many farm labourers practised voluntary underemployment – as wages rose, they worked less – generating a backward sloping labour curve[6].
The sixteenth century was characterized by shifts toward agricultural specialization in crops and animal husbandry, an increase in farming for profit, and a series of poor harvests. These agricultural trends, coupled with dense population in some counties[i], set the stage for agrarian crises and parliamentary intervention. In this complex situation, much blame was misdirected at the burgeoning wool industry and the sheep-keeper.
Agricultural innovations were possible for those farmers whose ensured tenure, large acreage, and established wealth freed them from the need to farm solely for subsistence. The farmer’s level of literacy affected exposure to, and willingness to adopt, agricultural innovations. The basic economic principles related to ‘economies of scale’ apply to agrarian profits. The size of a farm alters economic profits in relation to threshold subsistence levels, and in response to fluctuating harvests. The tenants or owners of larger holdings enjoyed the additional capacity that permitted introduction of experimental or non-subsistence crops. For arable crops, returns on invested capital could only be obtained after the harvest. Small-scale farmers faced an additional problem beyond growing adequate food for subsistence – they lacked the assets to store their produce, and were forced to sell their crops at harvest time when prices were lower. Owners of larger farms could store their surplus until market prices were more favorable, thus reaping greater profits.
In general, the larger the farming enterprise, whether its primary product was arable or pastoral, the greater its elasticity of supply. Larger operations could more easily adjust the quantity and nature of their output in response to market demands. Neither arable nor livestock farmers could alter production quickly in response to short-term price changes – so, the supply of farm produce was inelastic in the short-term. Prices varied inversely with supply, dropping in years of abundant harvest, and rising when harvests were poor. The situation was precarious for small-scale, subsistence level farmers because they were forced to buy high priced produce at times of poor harvest – both food for personal consumption, and grain to sow for next year’s crop or fodder for their livestock. Poor harvests actually favored farmers with larger holdings because their surplus crops could be sold at premium prices. Those who owned large farms could easily meet their needs for food and plant crops or rear livestock that would fetch high prices at market[7]. The economic imbalance between large and small farms resulted in the acquisition of small holdings by those farmers profiting from their control of large acreage – thus, the rich got richer. Engrossing, the absorption of small farms by large, displaced many from the land and increased the numbers of poorly paid agricultural laborers.
By 1850, leasehold had become the commonest form of tenure, with most English farmers renting their lands for periods of years from landlord owners. Common rights had been eliminated, and landless laborers were employed annually or piecemeal to work the farms[8].
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Footnotes.
Endnotes.
Enclosure and Engrossing
Common rights were extended to those who possessed a cottage and some arable land – in areas with plentiful land, all inhabitants had access to common grazing. Rights to common pasture were unlimited in the less fertile pastoral areas of the Pennines and the northern counties, around the lowland forests, and in fen areas. Despite losses due to coastal erosion in some areas[ii], large areas of saltmarsh were reclaimed for grazing[iii]. Grazing land was increasingly scarce in all heavily populated mixed-farming districts and in some pastoral areas of the west Midlands[9].
Two land-management processes that had elicited little or no complaint during the Middle Ages when common-land was plentiful, became the focus of considerable dissension in the sixteenth century. Enclosure of land – whether in common fields, meadows, or pastures – eliminated common-grazing rights. Population growth had stimulated enclosure because the supply of vacant or waste land was becoming exhausted in some areas. Prosperity for the individual farmer lay in acquiring control of adequate acreage – the profits to be made from wool added incentive to enclose acreage. An individual often amalgamated strips of land by purchase or exchange, then enclosed the land within fences and hedges. Enclosure increased the value of land for the farmer who had gained control of land use – he could raise more livestock since fodder and stubble were no longer shared, or he could plant a more profitable crop. The additional livestock were often sheep, profitable by virtue of their wool. Landlords profited when their tenants enclosed fields because higher rents could be collected on the more valuable land.
The economic and social consequences of enclosure differed from one region to another. If adequate common-land remained for the grazing of other villagers’ livestock there was no outcry, but riots and disturbances ensued in counties where enclosure caused hardship by depriving the community’s livestock of grazing. The greatest problems occurred in lowland villages with inadequate quantities of common-land, or in those with an expanding population that had relied upon previously large areas of common-field. Sixteenth century enclosures aroused considerable indignation, even riots, in the East Midlands. However, enclosure caused no difficulties in the sparsely populated, pastoral Pennines. Most land had already been enclosed without consternation in Essex, Suffolk, Kent, Hertfordshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall[10].
The acreages affected by enclosure were not accurately recorded at the time. Academic estimates, based mostly on official government enquiries into enclosure, suggest that only 2 per cent of the land was enclosed in the sixteenth century. Estimates conclude that enclosure jumped to 24 per cent of land in the seventeenth century, 13 per cent in the eighteenth century, and 11.4 per cent from 1800 to 1914[11].
Engrossing involved the consolidation of two or more farms into a single farm. Unused farmhouses were abandoned to fall into decay, or rented as cottages with small attached parcels of land. Engrossing often interfered with the access routes to common grazing fields. Enclosure and engrossing were independent processes – both procedures could affect farms, or one transformation could proceed without the other. Both processes caused depopulation, but engrossing created a greater problem because it displaced people directly from the land[12].
Early in the enclosure-engrossing crisis, parliament attempted a series of ineffectual interventions. The control of enclosures was moved to the courts of the Exchequer and the Chancery courts. A number of individual suits were tried in the courts; the cases were usually being settled in favor of landlords who presented enclosure as an agricultural advance or necessity. Pastoralists successfully argued that their soils were not suited to legislated conversion to tillage. By 1630, a system of land claims management evolved that required individual agreements to be negotiated locally. After 1700, parliament intervened much less in production issues, but shifted its focus to markets, imposing tariffs and bounties.[13] However, some lands were enclosed according to Acts of Parliament after 1750 – probably spurred by landed gentry who held seats in Parliament.
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Footnotes.
Endnotes.
Markets
Markets function to redistribute commodities from suppliers to producers. At the outset of the sixteenth century England had about 1800 market towns, supporting populations calculated to be around 10,000. Each town held markets once or twice weekly for its small hinterland of about 10 miles radius. There was little inter-market trading except during fairs held once or twice annually; goods from a wider area were traded at the market fairs. Prices were governed by customs and regulations, not by supply and demand. While private transactions occurred outside the public market, middlemen were despised for elevating prices and creating dearth.
After the end of the eighteenth century, few market towns remained but urbanization had greatly increased. Most commodities were traded at a national level, some items were transported large distance from regions of specialized agriculture. Transportation was commonly along rivers and newly constructed waterways, along much improved roads, and eventually by railroad. Competitive bid-pricing predominated, the variety and quantity of traded goods had vastly increased, and middlemen abounded (practicing ‘forward buying’ of grain, and using long distance credit.)
Livestock, being able to transport themselves, and animal products, fetching higher prices per weight, were the first commodities moved from localized markets, through inter-markets, to national markets (by the seventeenth century.) Grain was traded at the inter-market level by the sixteenth century[14].
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Footnotes.
Endnotes.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production
Almost all agriculture in the early sixteenth century was mixed-farming, it combined both arable and livestock husbandry. The crops grown and animals raised varied from region to region, and from one farm to another within a region. The enormous diversity of agrarian structures makes it difficult for historical geographers to move from regional descriptions of soils, topography, and agricultural methods to a regional analysis of complex agrarian relationships. English agriculture gradually moved from the subsistence-level small farm, characterized by trade of surplus at local markets, to more efficient regional agricultural specialization supplying national and international markets.
Regardless of the local soils, climate, settlement patterns and community organization, all farmers faced similar agricultural challenges. The main obstacles to food production continued to be loss of soil fertility, the vagaries of weather, and losses due to weeds, animal pests, and diseases of plants and animals. After the sixteenth century, limited availability of land became an increasingly widespread problem.
Plants require soluble salts of nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, and trace elements for their growth. All essential elements except nitrogen are supplied by the slow decomposition of the soil’s parent rock[15]. Because plants cannot utilize atmospheric nitrogen, their roots extract nitrate salts directly from the soil. In a natural cycle, the death and decay of plants in situ returns usable nitrogen to the soil, and lightning storms convert atmospheric nitrogen to nitrates, adding soluble nitrogen. The removal of plants, by cropping, depletes the soil of essential nitrates. Ploughed-in stubble, marling, and manuring improved soil fertility. Addition of lime or marl does not add soil nutrients, but reduces soil acidity and improves soil structure – enabling soil bacteria to release nutrients from manure and crop residues[16]. Addition of ‘recycled’ nitrogen to the fields, by grazing livestock or by application of transported manure, restores soil nitrogen[17]. The introduction of convertible husbandry improved retention of fecal nitrogen. Fields were no longer exclusively used as grazing or permanent arable, but were rotated both for pasture and tillage. Land use was switched between grass pasture and corn, in a simple rotation where grazing was allowed for many years, or in more sophisticated shorter rotations through grass ‘leys’[18].
Although the exact mechanism was unknown, early farmers understood the principle that a soil must ‘rest’ to recover its fertility, and that manure replenished soils. Fields that had been under prolonged tillage must lie uncultivated for one or more years to recover their fertility. The principle of allowing fields to lie fallow was practiced by the Roman Age – or earlier, if Bronze or Iron Age fields were abandoned only briefly before being returned to cultivation. A very important agricultural advance lay in the discovery that nitrogen-fixing leguminous plants – pastures of clover, and pulse crops of peas and beans – could restore soil fertility while also providing a fodder or food crop.
By the sixteenth century, fallow fields were often ‘ley ground,’ destined to be ploughed again after several years as unused ploughed land, grass, or leguminous pasture. The first crop replanted on ley ground varied across Britain. In some areas, the most valued crop was sown first – after fallow, or after a pulse crop of peas or beans. A typical rotation succession might be wheat, barley, oats, then back to fallow[19]. In other areas, particularly the fens, oats or coleseed (rapeseed) were sown as the usual post-fallow crop.[20] The ‘Norfolk four-course’ crop rotation was not common until about 1800, but represented an important agricultural breakthrough, extending the advantages of convertible, or ley, husbandry. Not applied to the same degree in all regions, the ‘classic’ Norfolk four-course rotated from nitrogen-restoring grass or clover pasture, through nitrogen-demanding wheat, to nitrogen-maintaining root fodder (turnips or swedes), to nitrogen-depleting barley or oats – and back to grass or clover.[21]
Nitrogen continued to be the limiting element for soil fertility until the development of modern fertilizers. It has been estimated that, by the mid-nineteenth century, the long-cultivated lands of Britain had been depleted of two-thirds of their original soil nitrogen[22]. Fertilizer imports from abroad began in the early nineteenth century, supplementing manure and ploughed-in stubble as sources of nitrogen[23].
While nothing can be done to alter weather, irrigation and drainage regulate soil wetness. Drought was problematic for dairy farmers if fodder supply was compromised. Conversely, excessively wet soil was associated with diseases – foot-rot in sheep, and plant root ‘suffocation,’[24] and fungal seed and plant diseases. Farmers of the sixteenth century faced greater problems than modern farmers at seeding-time because their lands were relatively poorly drained. Attempts to reduce fungal diseases included steeping the seed in brine, lime, blood, or urine[25]. Early attempts to control wetness involved the ploughing of deep ridges and furrows, trenching, and the digging of ditches. Hollow drains, filled with bushes or stones and covered with soil, first appeared in the seventeenth century. The modern subsurface ‘tile’ drain was not invented until the nineteenth century.
Crop rotation and fallow not only permitted a replenishment of soil nitrogen, it facilitated control of weeds, pests, and pathogens. Rotation of crops interrupted the establishment of species-specific pathogens. Annual weeds required laborious removal during crop growth. Weeds, particularly perennial weeds, were kept down by repeated ploughing during fallow. Ploughing also disrupted the burrows of animal pests. Staddle barns protected stored grain out of reach of vermin – mice and rats were defeated by the overhang of the mushroom shaped stones that supported granaries.
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Footnotes.
Endnotes.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture
Almost all agriculture in the early sixteenth century was mixed-farming, combining both arable and livestock husbandry. Grazing flocks and herds provided manure to the meadows and kept down bracken and sedge grasses. Beyond the benefit of droppings from grazing animals, little or nothing was done to improve the fertility of commons. Strict penalties against anyone who allowed a sick animal onto common pastures helped to reduce the transmission of infection among stock.
The daily and annual rhythms related to raising crops versus animals differed. Arable husbandry produces more food per acre for human consumption than does animal husbandry, however maintenance of some livestock remained essential to the farmer of early modern Britain. Aside from meat, dairy products, eggs, and skins, animals were essential for draught work until the industrial revolution, and for their manure until the twentieth century.
In August or September arable land was ploughed. Land that had been used for pasture was ploughed up to five or six times, while arable fields were ploughed about four times. In wet areas, several feet separated the top of a ploughed ridge from the adjacent drainage furrow. The soil was harrowed after ploughing to create a tilth onto which seed was broadcast-sown with one of the winter cereals in September or October. Farmers selectively sowed the seeds most likely to yield a good harvest. The winter cereals were wheat or rye, or a mixture of both, called ‘maslin’ or ‘mixlyn.’ If a spring crop was planned, the plough clods were left to be broken by winter frosts, then harrowed in the spring. From February to April, when the soil had warmed enough for an adequate tilth, the spring crops were sown – barley, or six-rowed bigg in the north; oats; and, peas and beans. Between sowing and harvesting, the fields were cleared of nutrient-competing weeds.
Hay was harvested in June and July – scythe-mown grass was raked into ‘cocks’ then stored in the barn or in straw-thatched ‘ricks.’ The cereals were harvested in August or September. Winter grains were harvested before spring crops. Wheat and rye were ‘reaped’ with a small sickle, barley and oats were ‘mown’ with a larger scythe. The cut stalks were bound into sheaves, stacked into ‘stooks,’ and left in the field for a week or so to dry. Later the stooks were stored in a barn, or piled into straw-thatched ‘stacks.’ The fields were gleaned after the harvest – scoured for fallen grain – a laborious process performed by women and children. The labor of marling, creating a fine tilth, sowing, hoeing and pulling of turnips was performed during arable slack-times[26].
Throughout the year, grain was threshed as needed – this was a skilled procedure whereby grain was separated from the stalk by beating with a wooden flail. The grain was then winnowed to remove chaff, and passed through a sieve or corn screen to separate valuable grain from the seeds of nuisance weeds.
Pastures required little attention beyond clearing weeds, like thistles and docks, and removing pests such as moles. Livestock required fodder over the winter months – hay, softened barley, peas and beans, carrots, and turnips for most livestock; and, hay and oats for horses. As much as twenty per cent of the arable harvest was reserved as fodder for livestock. Although livestock husbandry required less labor than arable farming, the livestock required considerable attention – young animals were born in the spring, and must soon be weaned. Young male livestock not required for breeding purposes were castrated. Sheep were washed and clipped in June. From May to October sheep were folded, and cattle were sometimes tethered, on arable land – usually on the fallow. Animals were bred in September and October (winter cereals were sown in these months.) Pigs, hens, geese, ducks, bees, and sometimes pigeons, were also raised. Depending upon location, a farmer might also tend a kitchen garden, an orchard, or a section of woodland.
Regular daily chores included the cutting of wood for fuel, and the maintenance and repair of buildings, fences, hedges, and ditches. On a daily basis, dairy cattle and sheep were milked in the morning and the evening – the milk was processed by women into butter and cheese. Many farmers, particularly those who specialized in raising livestock, had time to supplement their incomes through cottage industry, making crafts, or working at a trade.[27]
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Footnotes.
Endnotes.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750
A resurgence of focus on farming techniques, like that of the thirteenth century, began again around 1560. Many books were publishedP in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries on topics related to agricultural techniques and crop species. While some innovations and recommendations were useful, others were ill-advised or not applicable to regions with different soils, climates, or agricultural infrastructure. Publications shifted emphasis from farming activities to agricultural profits in the eighteenth century.
Population increase, similar to the increase prior to the Black Death, threatened to outstrip the existing agricultural output. Both the expanding numbers of townspeople, and the increasing numbers living on the land, needed more food. Demand was both for more food and a for a greater variety of crops. The main obstacles to increasing food production were limited availability of land, loss of soil fertility, the vagaries of weather, and losses due to weeds, animal pests, and diseases of plants and animals. The interest of many became focussed on the optimization of food production and agricultural profits – many, but not all.
Some farmers worked less ambitiously and less efficiently than others – then, as now. Failure of a farmer to clear weeds, molehills, or anthills from his own land could adversely affect the crops of a neighboring farmer. Intended “floating”f of meadowland to improve its fertility was sometimes thwarted by millers who re-routed watercourses – often causing collateral damage to crops by flooding cultivated farmland. Many tenant farmers who might otherwise have improved their land or their farming techniques were deterred by short leases or by the refusal of landlords to compensate them for improvements[28]. (A similar problem currently faces peasant farmers in China.)[29] Many farmers continued to cultivate the land according to the inefficient techniques and traditions of their forebears, so that innovations diffused slowly.
Tillage could not be changed quickly; the need for cycles of fallow contributed to the difficulty in quickly changing crop type. The restrictions of an annual planting season, limited capacity of soils to support different crop species, and fixed capital (field layout, buildings, and tools) could only be overcome through time, labor, and financial outlay.
Larger operations could more easily adjust the quantity and nature of their output in response to market demands. Neither arable nor livestock farmers could alter production quickly in response to short-term price changes – so, the supply of farm produce was inelastic in the short-term. Those who owned large farms could easily meet their needs for food and experiment with crops or livestock that could be expected to fetch high prices at market[30].
Difficulties in converting to alternate crops arose because some plant species required extensive ploughing, marling, and manuring before a field could produce a harvest. Such an investment was only worthwhile for larger farms producing non-subsistence marketable produce and for highly profitable crops – an example was woad (famous because Pict warriors smeared their bodies with the blue dye before entering battle.)
Woad, employed after the mid-sixteenth century as dye for the growing wool-textile industry, was labor intensive but very profitable, yielding six times the profit of “corn.”c Because woad required a deep, well-drained soil, much cultivation of woad was sited on alluvial land near rivers. The dye-stuff was grown in several counties[31][iv]. The extensive “marling, stirring, and soiling of the ground[32]” required to cultivate woad improved the soil, resulting in better crops of wheat and barley after woad farming. Woad’s profitability led to such extensive farming that a proclamation limiting its cultivation was issued in the famine year of 1587. The restrictions were removed in 1589[33]. The rapid policy reversal typifies one of the problems encountered in agricultural legislation of the day – restrictions were often imposed in response to problems that had disappeared before the interventions, problems caused by temporary climatic conditions.
It was not effortless to convert from arable to pastoral farming. Soil required labor to sow grass or clover and remove unwanted weeds. However, the raising of livestock required less effort and less manpower than tillage, particularly when livestock were managed within closed fields. Invested capital could be regained when fattened livestock or animal produce (dairy products, eggs, wool, etc.) were sold – thus, livestock farmers enjoyed more flexible cash flow, and the opportunity to sell produce when market prices were favorable. Most agriculture of the period was mixed-farming – a blend of crop and livestock husbandry – the livestock provided essential manure for maintenance of field fertility, and horses and oxen provided draught labor.
The interest in diversity and variety of foodstuffs, and experimentation, innovation, and specialization, was typical of the age – however, experimental approaches were not based on scientific knowledge, and had variable success. Innovation was supplanted by a demand for quantity and uniformity in the centuries after 1750 AD[34]. Trends were away from the small-scale subsistence farming of medieval village communities. Compared to the Middle Ages, transportation, importation, and exportation, of livestock and food products had increased – favoring those areas with rivers and sea-ports.
Several non-staple crops were cultivated more extensively after the sixteenth century. These included the dye-plants madder, weld (dyer’s weed), and saffron (also used as a culinary) – safflower was introduced in 1673, but could not compete with imports from Germany. Potatoes, so tolerant of poor soils, were introduced from the New World. A less fortuitous arrival, tobacco, was also introduced from the Americas. Tobacco was first cultivated in England around 1571. It was grown widely – in gardens, yards, and farms – despite efforts to limit its cultivation in order to ensure a market for Virginia tobacco[v]. The hop was another profitable crop plant introduced during the period. Hops were employed in the brewing of beer. Plants used in the production of cloth, baskets, and rope were quite widely grown – teasels, osiers, hemp, and flax. Flax provided not only linen and linseed oil, but the chaff and stalks were used for fuel. Hemp yielded canvas, strong ropes, oil, and seed that was fed to poultry. Cattle cakes, and better yields of oil, were derived from rapeseed, a plant indigenous to the seashores – perhaps introduced there by Dutch immigrants[35].
Dutch immigrants were also partly responsible for the expansion of market and kitchen gardening after the sixteenth century. Beginning in the thirteenth century, onion, leek, and cabbage seed had been sold at markets. The poor had grown vegetables for themselves and for the trade of any surplus – peascods, leeks, onions, parley, chervil, and cabbages (referred to as a bed of ‘wortes’ grown by Chaucer’s poor widow.) Market gardening spread rapidly, particularly in areas surrounding London and other large towns. Prior to this, the gardeners of royal palaces, large houses, colleges, and monasteries had traded fruit and vegetables[36]. Henry VIII’s gardener planted England’s first gooseberries, probably introduced apricots, and imported French grafts of cherry, pear, and apple[37]. By the reign of Charles I, many varieties of apples, pears, cherries and apricots were cultivated[vi].
Dutch and Flemish immigrants to East Anglia brought expertise to Britain – and sold “tons of roots” to the poor of London during the famine years of the 1590’s. During times of high grain prices, vegetables saved the poor from starvation. Vegetables were disdained by the upper classes who preferred to eat meat. The success of the Dutch and other market gardeners encouraged others to turn to cultivation by spade. Market gardeners ultimately grew a great variety of plants – cabbages and colewarts; onions and leeks; carrots, turnips, swedes, and parsnips; peas and beans; cucumbers, asparagus, celery, radishes, and lettuce; culinary herbs and spices; seeds; gooseberries, currants, and tree-fruit. Market gardening continued to spread in the seventeenth century, but the stimulus had changed – slower population growth, decreasing farm incomes, falling grain prices, and consumers’ tastes for a wider range of foods [38].
The planting of fruit orchards became more widespread, particularly after formation of the Commonwealth. Both Royalist and Roundhead soldiers discovered the joys of local cider when fighting in the West Country during the Civil War of the 1640’s. Increased cider consumption freed acreage from barley production and reduced the depletion of woodlands – wood was needed as fuel for the conversion of barley to malt. Perry was a pear beverage. The spread of orchards continued to be encouraged during the Restoration. Effort was expended on the improvement of cider, and on encouraging the export of cider. Attempts were made to distill brandy from cider in the latter 1690’s, when imports of French spirits had been banned[39].
Some vegetables were raised originally by market gardeners, but were later adopted as field crops – caraway, mustard seed, onions, liquorice root, and carrots. Liquorice was grown for medicinal use on numerous small acreages in favorable soils (deep, rich, easily worked soils.)[vii] Carrots were eaten by man and used as cattle fodder and poultry feed. At Fulham, near London, a combination of spade gardening and ploughing was used in fields that were exploited by an occasional switch to wheat-raising.[40]
The agricultural diversity and experimentation of the period between 1500 and 1750 AD was typified not only by the range of crops, but by the number of varieties of each crop species. The most common arable crops were wheat; rye; barley, bere, or bigg; oats or haver; beans and peas – each was represented by several species, often grown in different areas. Barley was the most commonly cultivated white grain – it grew more readily than wheat in the less fertile common fields, and provided bread, malt, and animal fodder. The barley grown in Lincolnshire and the Hertfordshire Chilterns was mostly used for the brewing of beer. Oat varieties were the only cereals that could be grown on the poorest and wettest soils[viii]. Buckwheat, vetches, tares, and lentils were also grown in some locations. Buckwheat would grow on barren, sandy soils that could support little else. The largest acreages of “French wheat” were on the sands and brecks of Norfolk and Suffolk, where the poultry industry used the buckwheat to fatten chickens, geese, turkeys, and ducks[41].
Turnips, and clover, were grown commonly in Norfolk by 1750. Turnips required a fine tilth and low soil acidity, but their deep root system enabled them to concentrate soil nutrients into their bulbous root. The nutrients could be recycled as manure through feeding to livestock, or left in the soil. The combination of marling and turnip crops was used to reclaim much heathland by the 1840s. The turnip played an important role in the Norfolk four-course crop rotation. The Swedish turnip, or swede, was grown for human consumption, but turnips were grown as high-yield cattle fodder[42].
Livestock – cattle, dairy cows, sheep, goats, rabbits, poultry, pigs, ponies and horses – were initially represented by an enormous variety of breeds (beginning in the eighteenth century selective breeding for advantageous traits reduced their variety.) Bee-keeping was ubiquitous, and the gentry kept game and raised doves (often to the detriment of their neighbors’ crops.) Animal husbandry benefited both from advances in grazing techniques and from increased acreage due to extensive reclamation of marsh and saltmarsh. Pasturing utilized either dry upland meadowland suited to hay production, or superior water meadows. Dry meadows must be manured every few years to support their being mowed for hay. The superiority of natural water meadows led to the practice of “floating”f upland meadows. First introduced in western England, floating provided early fodder for the increasing numbers of livestock. The procedure was expensive and was initially confined to the estates of wealthy and literate landowners – however, the obvious success of winter-flooding of pastures led to its more widespread adoption.
Agriculture was not efficient by modern standards, but innovation was widespread and little was wasted. Wastelands being brought under cultivation were “denshired” – turf was pared off, piled into heaps, burned, and the ashes scattered across the land. Marl was transported from ancient marlpits[ix]; seasand was hauled inland; and, limestone and beach-pebbles were burned in field-kilns – all were sown into fields or cast across the soil. Anything and everything was used to manure the land or enrich the soil. The townsfolk of Newcastle-on-Tyne piled their ashes and dung on a heap in the middle of town – the local farmers transported the refuse away once a year to be spread as manure (probably not a moment too soon for the townsfolk.) London’s stable dung, and the droppings of cattle sheep, goats, pigs, and horses – and, best-of-all pigeons – were assiduously collected and selectively spread. Other “unlikely” sources of manure were river sludge and detritus from the cleansing of fish ponds. Bracken was strewn across laneways to be trodden down before being spread over fields. Malt dust, soap ashes, brine, hair, decaying fish, offal, entrails, and blood were all used as manure[43]. Phew! The infamous lack of British attention (then) to personal hygiene seems less offensive in view of the reeking backdrop of the environment.
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
Footnotes.
Endnotes.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution
A complex accumulation of incremental changes contributed to the revolution in agricultural efficiency that accelerated in the nineteenth century.
The total acreage under cultivation increased through reclamation of marsh, saltmarsh, rough pastures, heathlands, and upland wastes, and through further clearance of woodland. However, agricultural technological advances played a greater rôle in increased productivity – for example, windmills aided the continuing drainage of reclaimed fenlands; and, hollow drains, and later tile drains, improved the management of England’s heavy, wet soils.
Soil fertility was improved through preservation and restoration of soil nutrients, particularly nitrogen. Initially, ‘rest’ periods under fallow allowed soils to recuperate. Marling improved soil structure and pH balance, promoting regeneration of soil nitrogen and rendering soils suitable for ‘fussier’ crops. Changes in landholding and tenures, enclosure, and engrossing resulted in larger, capital-rich farms. The larger scale farmer was able to adopt innovations and to focus on efficiency, labor management, and profit. Convertible husbandry, combining arable, ‘ley fields,’ and increased livestock (aided by enclosure) improved the ‘recycling’ of nitrogen and increased productivity. Floating of meadows provided early fodder for increasing numbers of livestock. Stall feeding of livestock on fodder, and folding livestock overnight on arable fields, improved the distribution of manure. Ultimately, variations on the Norfolk four-course crop rotations, exploited leguminous and root-fodder crops to reduce or eliminate fallow. The sophisticated rotations, coupled with more advanced breeds of livestock, preserved soil fertility, produced greater yields of animal products, and increased the portion of acreage under tillage. Widening markets, improved transportation, and greater awareness of the optimum use of regional soils led to regional agricultural specialization. Although increasing acreage was devoted to profitable non-edible crops, new food crops were introduced, and more productive food-crops were grown in optimized proportions. Each advance increased product per acre per year.
Improvements in agricultural education aided more efficient farm and labor management. Agricultural manpower was supplemented by an increase in draught horses, by improved tools (including the seed drill and horse hoe), and by the eventual replacement of draught animals by machinery. The introduction of disease-resistant hybrids, chemical fertilizers (superphosphates were developed first), fungicides, and pesticides allowed further increases in productivity[44].
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Endnotes.
Footnotes
c
Agricultural refers to farming techniques – the ‘cow and plough’ aspect of land
utilisation – and to the capacity of agriculture to feed the population.
r Agrarian
revolution refers to changes in social and economic structures accompanying
altered agricultural exploitation.
T A
chronology of, historic events, monarchs, and acts of Parliament is supplied in
Tables 1 & 2 of the Appendix.
[1] Overton, Mark, Agricultural
Revolution in England: The transformation of the agrarian economy 1500-1850, Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography
23. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
pp. 26-30. Subsequent
footnote references to this source will be cited as Revolution.
[3] Revolution,
pp.
44-45.
[4] Revolution, pp.
22-35.
[5] Revolution, pp.
36-45.
[6] Revolution, p. 38
[7] Revolution, pp.
19-21.
[8] Revolution, p.
132.
[9] Chapters from the Agrarian History or England and Wales, 1500-1750. Volume 3 Agricultural Change : Policy and
Practice, 1500-1750. Thirsk, Joan,
Ed. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1990,
pp. 33-69. Subsequent
footnote references to this source will be cited as Agrarian.
[11] Agrarian, p. 2.
[12] Agrarian, pp.
54-55.
[13] Agrarian, pp.
92 144 128
[14] Revolution, pp.
133-139.
[15]
Nebel, Bernard J., Environmental
Science, 2nd
Edition, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1987.
p. 178. Subsequent footnote references to this
source will be cited as Environmental.
[16] Revolution, p. 16.
[17] Environmental, pp.
62-64.
[18] Revolution, pp.
116-117.
[19] Revolution, p. 17.
[20] Agrarian, p. 20.
[21] Revolution, pp.
1-2, pp. 117-121.
[22] Revolution, p.
16.
[23] Revolution, p. 11.
[24] Environmental, pp.
180-182.
[25] Revolution, p. 17.
[26] Revolution, p.
110 and pp.
127-128.
[27] Revolution, pp.
10-15.
P The first
English printing press was established in 1476.
f Floating
was the practice of diverting streams to flood pastures over the winter months,
followed by draining in the spring, then
pasturing livestock on the dried meadows.
[29] Can China Feed Itself? Prosterman, Roy L., Hanstad, Tim., Ping,
Li. Scientific American, November,
1996, p.90.
[30] Revolution, pp.
19-21.
c “Corn”
refers to cereal grains, not to maize species.
[31] Further
details are supplied in the “Endnote” section – endnote references will be
marked by lower-case numeral superscripts.
[32]
Guildford Muniment Room Losely MS 1966,
3 and 1. Quoted in Agrarian, p. 29.
[34] Agrarian, pp.
317-318.
[36] Agrarian, pp.
9-11.
[37] Agrarian, pp. 49-50.
[38] Agrarian, pp.
9-11.
[39] Agrarian, pp.
50 and 130
and 137 and
171-173.
[40] Agrarian, p. 29.
[41] Agrarian, pp.
22-29.
[42] Revolution, p. 91
and 99 and
117-120.
f Floating
was the practice of diverting streams to flood pastures over the winter months,
followed by draining in the spring, then
pasturing livestock on the dried meadows.
In some areas the meadows were re-floated in June before being turned
over to growing hay.
[43] Agrarian, pp.
20-22.
[44] Revolution, pp. 63-207.
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Footnotes.
Endnotes
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Footnotes.
Endnotes
[i] Densely populated common-field counties lay in the Midlands. Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire,
Bedfordshire, East Anglia, and the fens of Lincolnshire had been the most
densely populated areas in England at the time of a late fourteenth century
poll tax.
[ii] Coastal erosion occurred in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, the Wash, Caernarvon, Denbigh,
and Lancashire – it was on a smaller scale than land gains due to reclamation.
[iii] Reclamation of saltmarsh took place on a large scale – Suffolk, the southern Wash,
Kent, Devon, Hampshire, the Welsh coast, and the banks of the Severn River.
[iv] Woad
was grown in Somerset in the Middle Ages.
After the later sixteenth century woad was grown in Hampshire,
Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Essex – woad farming spread to
Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire,
and Rutland.
[v] The Gloucestershire
districts around Winchcombe, Cheltenham, and Tewkesbury were the most important
tobacco-growing centres in the
kingdom. Tobacco was also grown in yards
and gardens – London, Westminster, the Channel Islands, the Home Counties,
Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, and Wiltshire.
[vi] Fruit trees grew in every sixteenth
century hedgerows of the fruit growing counties – Kent, Hertfordshire,
Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Somerset, and Devon. Orchards
were rapidly established in these counties.
Cherries were grown at Ketteringham in Norfolk.
[vii] Liquorice was grown at Pontefract and nearby Featherstone in Yorkshire, Godalming and Croydon
in Surrey, Worksop in Nottinghamshire, in Norfolk, and in kitchen and nursery
gardens around London.
[viii] Oats
was the largest crop on Dartmoor, and was commonly grown in other parts of
Devon and Cornwall. It was the main crop
of the Yorkshire Dales, south Lancashire, the Derbyshire Peak district, the
Staffordshire moorlands, and parts of Wales.
Oats were second to bigg in all other sectors of the northern
counties. It was used in both bread and
in oatmeal concoctions in mountainous areas where barley was needed for beer
production. Oats were also grown
extensively for animal fodder in some lowland pastoral areas such as the Weald
of Kent and Sussex, and for the provisioning of horses in Hertfordshire. Clothiers in Staffordshire used oats to
thicken mingled cloths.
[ix] Medieval marlpits were located in Lancashire, Cheshire, Shropshire, Somerset, Middlesex, Sussex,
and Surrey.
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Apis - Bee evolution, distribution ⇝
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Apis - Bee evolution, distribution ⇝
