1. Capital investment in agriculture

Question 1

Purpose of investment

Answer 1

• In order for farmers to take risks and experiment with new techniques - investment needed to ensure that productivity increased

Question 2

Who conducted much of the investment?

Answer 2

Higher gentry and aristocracy - to invest in large-scale modernisation
- Able to buy land from neighbouring farms, enclose it and investment in new crops

Question 3

Why did the large farms that resulted from investment flourish after 1650?

Answer 3

• Population growth slowed down and deflation meant that large landowners could improve their estates relatively cheaply, as labour and materials became more affordable

Question 4

How were farmers free of the need to supply only their local market, where they would receive lower prices?

Answer 4

• They could concentrate on supplying markets where demand for their goods was high

Question 5

Where could the impact of this investment in large farms be seen

Answer 5

In the south Midlands, where, in 1700, 53.6% of agricultural land was part of large estates of over 100 acres, compared with 32.2% a hundred years earlier.

Question 6

Farms became huge as a result of this investment - e.g.,…

Answer 6

• East Anglia - some farms over 500 acres in size

Question 7

Numerically small family farms

Answer 7

Still outnumbered large ‘capital farms’ - although small farms were only predominant in the pastoral North and the moorland of the South West.

Question 8

Counties specialising in wheat/mixed wheat and livestock production

Answer 8

• Lowland plains in the Midlands - as well as East Anglia and the South East - became dominated by landowners able to vest heavily.

Question 9

What did owners of farms require, with the expansion of size?

Answer 9

• More assistance in managing production - so leased out sections to tenants - was often more profitable to work as a large tenant farmer than remain a small landowner

Question 10

Why did capital investment improve production?

Answer 10

• Large landowners delegated work to their tenants
• The rents that were charged by the owners of large farms were high, and tenants were expected to maintain buildings at their own expense - and ensure hedges and fields were kept in good condition

Question 11

How did tenants meet demands for rent?

Answer 11

• Had no choice but to specialise and produce what was most suited to local conditions - meaning investment was required

Question 12

How did landlords invest in their tenants?

Answer 12

By offering them loans to help them modernise - in the expectation that they would profit from increased production
- This investment could also consist of road improvements and the widening of water course in order to sell goods at regional markets