Transforming Agriculture: The 18th Century Revolution

The Agricultural Revolution gradually transforms from the old traditional agricultural system to a more productive system. The Dutch Republic and above all England led the way to the growth and improvement in agriculture in the early 18th century that spread throughout Europe. These gradual improvements saw important developments through new farming techniques and equipment, and experimentation with new crops and crop rotation. Along with new farming techniques and new patterns of crop rotation, also came the improvement of livestock breeding. The improvements paved the way for better crop yields, a greater diversity of vegetables, the ability to support more livestock and led to a surplus of food that impacted society as the population became better nourished and healthier. From the increase in agricultural productivity during the Agricultural Revolution also contributed to the increase in population. In addition to the Agricultural

Revolution was the emerging group of experimental scientists and the enclosure movement.
The farming methods used during the Middle Ages and towards the Agricultural Revolution was the open-field, communal system, which sustained fairly large numbers of people, but did not produce material abundance. The farmland was divided into several large fields that were in turn cut up into long, narrow strips. The fields were open and the whole peasant village followed the same pattern of ploughing, sowing and harvesting, a tradition they did for a long time. The farmers continue to have recurring issues with soil exhaustion and with the limited supply of manure for fertilizing nitrogen to it they would have to fallow the land to allow it to recover. They would alternate one year of fallow with two years of cropping, which was a three-year rotation that allowed them to have two years of cash crops out of three.
Following the inefficient open field system that was problematic on account of parts of the land remain unplanted at times in order to avoid depleting the soil, the Agricultural Revolution brought new ways of rotating crops. The Agricultural Revolution of rotating crops allowed farmers to forgo the unproductive fallow system, which in turn were able to maintain their land in continuous cultivation. Instead of fallow the land, they alternated grain with crops that restored nutrients to the soil, such as peas, and beans, root crops such as turnips and potatoes, clover and other grasses. Furthermore, having more fodder for their livestock and building up their herds of cattle and sheep, they had more manure to fertilize and restore the soil. Having more animals also meant more power to plow fields, and pull carts to the markets. In additionally, more animals also meant more meat and dairy products. The Agricultural Revolution produced a surplus of food that there was less famine.
In addition to the Agricultural Revolution was the emerging group of experimental scientists and the enclosure movement. Agricultural scientists believed to use new methods to farm more effectively, the open-field system should have fenced in fields. Advocates of the agricultural improvements that included a group of experimental scientists, government officials, and wealthy landowners, argue that using the new methods to farm more effectively would not work with the old traditional open fields and common rights method. They believed that to experiment with new agricultural methods and to consolidate their scattered holdings should be adjoining compact enclosed fields in order to farm more effectively. To do this, the innovators wanted to enclose the village’s common pastureland into individual shares. The movement affected the poor peasants that relied on common fields for farming and pasture.
The Enclosure movement changed from the common rights method of farming in the process of privatizing common lands, which landowners took the profits from farming or lives stock operation instead of sharing among the peasant village.

It set the tone for private land ownership. The Enclosure movement had wealthy landowners forcing small peasant farmers to become landless rural wage earners (p. 546). Although, Agricultural Revolution bought a significant scientific innovation change in new ways of agricultural methods, such as crop rotations that allowed for better crop yields and a great diversity of vegetables, furthermore, it increased their livestock as well. However, with more recent research has shown that regions that maintained open-field farming were still able to adopt crop rotation and other innovations, which indicates that the enclosures were not a prerequisite for increased production (p. 545), and perhaps a conspiracy from the wealthy farmers to become independent shareholders at the expense of the poor peasant

farmers.