Agricultural Revolution

Question 1

In the early nineteenth-century, how much more productive was the British agricultural labour force than the French?

Answer 1

the British agricultural labour force was 1/3 more productive than the French

Question 2

How does the British output per man in agriculture in the early nineteenth-century compare to the Russian?

Answer 2

The British rate of output per man was 2x more than the Russian

Question 3

What is the general claim within the historiography of the agricultural revolution?

Answer 3

Most link high efficiency with the peculiarity of British agricultural and economic institutions

Question 4

What were the three main changes which occurred in/ propagated the agricultural revolution?

Answer 4

Open fields were enclosed, farm sizes increased significantly, and tenancies became general.

Question 5

Why is agriculture commonly claimed to have been integral to the IR?

Answer 5

Agriculture is often considered integral to the IR because it increased output and provided industrialisation with labour and capital factor inputs.

Question 6

What is the main point of contention within the historiography of the agricultural revolution?

Answer 6

The main historiographical disagreements fall on the timing and nature of the agricultural revolution.

Question 7

What is the general consensus among most twentieth-century historians regarding the agricultural revolution?

Answer 7

It occurred before 1700 and was not attached to increased enclosures and farm sizes

Question 8

How does British output per agricultural worker in 1700 compare to that of France?

Answer 8

Output per worker in agriculture by 1700 already exceeds France by 15%

Question 9

How does Robert Allen characterise the early to mid nineteenth century?

Answer 9

As a time of ‘sustained improvement’

Question 10

What are the two main interpretations of the agricultural revolution in the eighteenth century?

Answer 10

either as a period of stasis or as a period of steady progress

Question 11

What are the key aspects of the agricultural revolution?

Answer 11

productivity growth, the rural social structure, and the role of agriculture in wider economic development

Question 12

What was the general state of farm prices in the eighteenth century?

Answer 12

They fell 1725-50, and then erratically increased until the 1790s

Question 13

What was the general state of corn prices in the latter half of the eighteenth century?

Answer 13

they were 2x, if not 3x their normal price in 1795, 99, 1800 - this remained high throughout the Napoleonic Wars

Question 14

When was there an acceleration in enclosures and why?

Answer 14

From 1750 onwards, because of rising farm prices

Question 15

What was the general dispersion of agricultural activity in the eighteenth century?

Answer 15

80% of agricultural land was in England and Wales, and this produced 89% of total agricultural output

Question 16

What was the state of open field farming (i.e. the medieval system)?

Answer 16

There was a rigid divide between arable and pasture lands, 3-field crop rotation and varying sizes of commons dependent upon population density

Question 17

What was the 3 field system?

Answer 17

Plot 1 would have wheat or rye; plot two barley, oats, beans or peas; plot three would be fallow

Question 18

How does Robert Allen describe enclosure farms?

Answer 18

‘Enclosure farming was the antithesis of the open field system’

Question 19

What did enclosures lead to in terms of farming practice?

Answer 19

Enclosures created consolidated blocks of private property, thus exclusive control of land use

Question 20

What percentage of agricultural land was open field in 1700, what about in 1914?

Answer 20

in 1700 29% of English farmland was open field, by 1914 only 5% was.

Question 21

Where was the enclosure movement most intense?

Answer 21

Enclosures were most intense in the midlands

Question 22

How did enclosure occur?

Answer 22

Via parliamentary act, usually required 75/80% of land’owners’ to be in agreement, then a surveyor would be sent to ensure everyone received appropriately valued land

Question 23

How many acts were there for how many acres of open field land?

Answer 23

3093 acts for 4.5m acres of open field land

Question 24

How many acts were there for how many acres of common pasture and waste land?

Answer 24

2172 acts for 2.3m acres of common pasture and waste land.

Question 25

What was the average farm size in 1700?

Answer 25

65 acres, although southern farms tended to be bigger

Question 26

What was the average farm size in 1800? What had changed?

Answer 26

150 acres in the south, 100 acres in the north. Small freeholds had been bought up by large estates.

Question 27

Who claimed that in the eighteenth-century 'the formerly yeoman lands passed into the hands of the gentry and aristocracy'?

Answer 27

Robert Allen

Question 28

What did the emergence of the great estate mean for rural social structures?

Answer 28

The establishing of great estates led to the creation of the landlord/tenant/labourer hierarchy

Question 29

What can be said of contemporary agricultural opinion?

Answer 29

Many, such as Arthur Young, thought that enclosures were a prerequisite to modernisation

Question 30

What did contemporary Arthur Young claim about wealthy farmers?

Answer 30

They are 'able to work great improvements in his business'

Question 31

Where did contemporary opinion on enclosures diverge?

Answer 31

On the question of how they impacted employment

Question 32

What were the two ways enclosures were said to impact employment?

Answer 32

That the expulsion of agricultural labourers created a manufacturing workforce, and that there was an increase in employment because of the now intensive cultivation

Question 33

What contemporary opinion has become entrenched in historiography of the agricultural revolution's impact on employment? What is an issue with this?

Answer 33

That the expulsion of workers created a labour force for manufacturing - yet many who lost their jobs still did not leave their villages

Question 34

What are the three approaches to measuring agricultural output?

Answer 34

1. Dean and Cole's approach (considering food intake as static), 2. Crafts (considering it as increasing), 3. Estimating directly from data only, no conjectures.

Question 35

What are one agreement and one disagreement within the three approaches used to measure agricultural output?

Answer 35

They agree that output was around 3.5 factor, but disagree regarding timescale- Dean and Cole suggest rapid growth from 1750+, where Crafts and raw data show steady growth with a period of stasis (1780) or stagnation (1740-80)

Question 36

Why did agricultural output increase?

Answer 36

due to land, labour and capital input improvements (in methods and organisation particularly)

Question 37

Outline the increase in cultivated land between 1700 and 1850.

Answer 37

1700 the amount of cultivated land was 21m acres, in 1800 it was 29.1m acres, in 1850 it was 30.6m acres.

Question 38

What type of land grew in cultivation when?

Answer 38

In the eighteenth century largely pasture and meadow which came under cultivation, in the nineteenth century mostly arable land was created

Question 39

What did Arthur Young claim regarding enclosures in Lincolnshire?

Answer 39

land was 'converted by enclosure into profitable, arable farms'.

Question 40

What is a key issue with measuring the role of labour in the agricultural revolution?

Answer 40

Most families and individual labourers had invisible employments and seasonal work which is not heavily documented

Question 41

What did Dean and Cole find in regards to British farm employment in the period 1801-51?

Answer 41

In 1801 the amount of agricultural employees was 1.7m, in 1851 it was 2.1m

Question 42

What must be remembered when studying the early nineteenth century and earlier?

Answer 42

Censuses prior to 1851 are not wholly reliable or representative sources, this means conjectures based on retrospective data are commonplace

Question 43

How can we supplement the unreliability of early census data?

Answer 43

Alongside census data we can correlate employment levels to farm sizes garnered from contemporary estimates (as they will not have wanted to lie out of fear of repercussions)

Question 44

How can we account for extra labourers in the agricultural revolution era?

Answer 44

extra labour was often hired during peak times such as the harvest, however they had minimal contribution overall in comparison to yearly employees

Question 45

What was the total employment increase in agriculture according to Robert Allen?

Answer 45

1.6m (1700), 1.4m (1800), 1.5m (1851)

Question 46

What is the difference between agricultural employees of 1700 and those of 1851?

Answer 46

In 1700 agricultural employment was family-based, annual employment, whereas in 1851 it was mostly male day-labourers

Question 47

Whose claim that the agricultural population equated to 3m corroborates Allen's statistics on agricultural employment increases?

Answer 47

Wrigley's, if we consider the average household size to be 4.5 persons

Question 48

How much did the male agricultural workforce increase between 1811-1851?

Answer 48

10%

Question 49

How were improvements on farms paid for?

Answer 49

Landlords financed permanent / large scale improvements such as fences, tenants often financed temporary improvements such as livestock implements and soil improvements

Question 50

Where did the tenants' capital go?

Answer 50

It was spent on temporary improvements, wages, rent, tax etc (often, the previous years profits were put aside for this)

Question 51

Between 1700-1850 what happened to tenants' and landlords' capital on average?

Answer 51

It increased twofold

Question 52

Between 1800-1840 by how much did capital per acre increase?

Answer 52

Capital per acre increased by 40%- it was the fastest growing input

Question 53

By how much did factor inputs in agriculture increase between 1700-1850?

Answer 53

Land increased by 37%, labour increased by 16%, and capital increased by 93%.

Question 54

What was the total factor productivity growth for the period 1700-1850 regarding agriculture?

Answer 54

between 2.32-2.46, depending on statistics used.

Question 55

What was the rate of productivity growth in agriculture in the eighteenth century?

Answer 55

0.6% pa.

Question 56

What was the rate of productivity growth in agriculture in the nineteenth century?

Answer 56

0.5% pa.

Question 57

What is the alternative (i.e no growth, then rapid growth) rate of productivity growth in agriculture throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? What does this other rate suggest?

Answer 57

Allen found -- rate, and then a rate of 1.7% in the nineteenth century. That there are differing rates both based on factual evidence highlights the extent to which measurement of data needs refining.

Question 58

What happened to corn and livestock production in the period 1700-1850?

Answer 58

Corn and livestock production increased threefold.

Question 59

Why did corn production rise in the period 1700-1850?

Answer 59

Because of an increase in yield per acre, due to improvements in method, rather than due to more being sown.

Question 60

By how much did gross YPA increase during the period 1700-1850? What must be remembered regarding this?

Answer 60

Gross YPA, depending on the crop, increased by between 50-75%- although this was a continuation of an earlier trend

Question 61

What was one example of a technique increasing YPA?

Answer 61

Farmers began separating seeds from heavy-bearing crops, thus creating resistant crop strains.

Question 62

What are three examples of farm improvements which occurred during the era of the agricultural revolution?

Answer 62

new use of manure, cultivation of legumes (which balanced nitrogen & thus helped the soil), introduction of machinery, and the fall of drain tile prices in the 1840s

Question 63

What happened to the amount of cattle on British farms?

Answer 63

Cattle decreased from 4.5m (1700) to 3.9m (1850), although the weight and meat of carcases increased

Question 64

What were reasons for the change in livestock farming?

Answer 64

There were improvements in both breed and feeding, a social shift from young meats to old (i.e. away from veal and lamb), animal feed was introduced into crop rotation, new breeds were created

Question 65

What is an example of a new breed of animal created in the agricultural revolution?

Answer 65

The New Leicester Sheep in the mid eighteenth century, it had a higher flesh:bone ratio

Question 66

What crop rotation method involved the planting of animal feed?

Answer 66

The Norfolk rotation allowed the planting of winter fodder for livestock

Question 67

What was the impact on employment demographics from farm size increases.

Answer 67

Fewer women and boys were employed, because of larger farms not being heavily involved in dairying and because boys could not be kept an eye on

Question 68

What is the relationship between labour falls and productivity?

Answer 68

A fall in labour per acre dictates that productivity overall rises

Question 69

What was one fiduciary incentive to having larger farms?

Answer 69

higher rents could be charged on larger farms

Question 70

What study proves that open fields were not always deterrents to progress?

Answer 70

Havinden (1961) found that villages in Oxfordshire did introduce new crops e.g. Sainfoin, albeit slower

Question 71

How did contemporaries compare the affects of enclosure on YPA?

Answer 71

A. Young found that enclosed villages had 7-12% higher YPA than open field villages.

Question 72

How did historian Turner (1986) compare the affects of enclosure on YPA?

Answer 72

Enclosed villages were found to have 11-23% higher YPA than open field villages.

Question 73

What must be considered when making generalisations of enclosure affects on YPA?

Answer 73

That no matter the generalisation, impacts varied geographically because of soil type etc.

Question 74

What is the difference between modern and early-modern enclosures?

Answer 74

Where it is highly likely that early-modern enclosuring involved the 'tyrannical lord' there is little evidence of this culture existing in modern times, although people did still lose property

Question 75

What did Chambers (1953) claim regarding the impact of enclosures?

Answer 75

Traditionally focused, he claimed that enclosures improved agriculture which thus needed more employees.

Question 76

What did Snell (1983) claim regarding the impact of enclosures?

Answer 76

Revisionist focused, he claims that enclosures created chronic seasonal unemployment from his analysis of Poor Law usage.

Question 77

How does Allen reconcile the traditional and revisionist opinions of the impact of enclosures?

Answer 77

Allen claims that enclosures only impacted heavily if they involved the conversion of arable land into pasture lands

Question 78

What was the impact of enclosures enacted in the period 1700-1850, why?

Answer 78

<14% impact on productivity growth, because a rise in surplus was not necessarily more than rise in rents (thus no surplus capital) and because only 21% of enclosure actually occurred during this period

Question 79

What was a benefit of the enclosure movement in the eighteenth century?

Answer 79

It brought wasteland into cultivation

Question 80

What was the increase in total value of English and Welsh agricultural land from 1700-1850?

Answer 80

Agricultural land was worth £8.75m in 1700, and £10.025m in 1850. This is an increase of 23%

Question 81

What was the impact of enclosures PURELY in the eighteenth century on productivity growth?

Answer 81

>14%

Question 82

What must be said about the limitations of calling the agricultural revolution impactful?

Answer 82

It did not provide a home market for manufacturers, particularly after 1800. It wasn't a source of capital, in fact, it was a vacuum, it did release labour necessary for IR.

Question 83

What can be said about the agricultural revolution's release of labour?

Answer 83

Although interpreted as a source for the IR, these labourers rarely migrated and so it really only served to create structural unemployment as traditional roles disappeared

Question 84

What was the impact of the release of labour during the agricultural revolution?

Answer 84

The release of labour caused national income to drop several percentage points, but, output per worker tripled.

Question 85

How did the agricultural revolution affect GDP?

Answer 85

With Agriculture, GDP grew at a rate of 0.82% (1700s), 2.10% (E1800s). Without, 0.68% and 1.74%.

Question 86

What was the social impact of the agricultural revolution (three things)?

Answer 86

1. prices of food increased because supply grew slower than demand, 2. rural standard of living was jeopardised, 3. farmers immediately benefitted from larger farms, but landlords were the true benefactors.