Ch. 17 Flashcards
open-field system
Middle Ages - 1600’s
Sustained fairly large numbers of people but did not produce a surplus
This leads to soil exhaustion
clover
Restored nitrogen directly to the soil through its roots
soil exhaustion
Wheat depletes nitrogen
Land recovers with a fallow period in which clover and other grasses spring up, restoring nutrients to the soil and providing food for the livestock
Early Middle Ages: year of crops, year of fallow
Three-year rotations
Year of wheat or rye -> year of oats or beans -> year of fallow
communal patterns of farming
Reinforced by traditional village rights
Open meadows for natural hay and pasture
Gleaning of grain: picking up single grains fallen during harvest
At the end of the 17th century, at least 80% of the people of Western Europe grew their livelihoods from agriculture (with the exception of the Dutch Republic and England - McKay’s “A History of Western Society”
Proof of agrarian society
Serfdom in Europe
Eastern Europe: serfdom
Western Europe: freedom; in France, western Germany, England, and the Low Countries peasants could own land and pass it on to their children.
By 1700 less than half the population of Britain and the Dutch Republic worked in agriculture and produced enough to feed the rest - McKay
Old agriculture methods were ineffective
New ways of rotating crops
*Maintain lands in continuous cultivation
Alternate grain with crops that restore nutrients to the soil like beans, peas, root crops (turnips and potatoes), clover, and other grasses.
more fodder -> more animals -> more manure and fertilizer to restore the soil; more meat and dairy products; more power to pull plows and carts
potatoes
Came to Europe through the Colombian Exchange
Easy to grow and very replenishing; common among peasants
methodical farming
New experiments fueled by developments in the Scientific revolution
enclosure
Fencing common fields into individual shares
This leads to new agricultural technologies and experimentation (PRO)
Leads to proletarianization (CON)
In France and Germany, open fields remain; in the Low Countries and England enclosure is adopted
This led to the rise of capitalist market-oriented estate agriculture
Dutch agriculture
One of the most densely populated areas in Europe -> demand for effective farming
Increase cultivated area through draining of marshes and swamps
Variety of crops
Enclosed fields
Manure as fertilizer
Continuous crop rotation
Adopted by the English
The pressure of population caused the growth of towns and cities. Amsterdam grew from 30,000 to 200,00 inhabitants in the 17th century - McKay
Proof of population growth = demand for farm products
Cornelius Vermyuden
Dutch engineer; conducts a drainage project in Yorkshire and another in Cambridgeshire
In the Cambridge fens, Vermyuden and his workers reclaimed 40,000 acres through drainage - McKay
Proof of Vermyuden’s work
Jethro Tull
English innovator and Enlightenment thinker
Empirical research to develop better methods
Use of horses over oxen
Sowing seeds with drilling equipment
Charles Townshed
English innovator
Continuous crop rotation using wheat, turnips, barley, and clover.
Robert Bakewell
Selective breeding of ordinary livestock
Before 1700 more than half of the farmland was enclosed through private initiatives. In 1760-1815 a series of acts of Parliament enclosed most of the remaining common land. - McKay
Prood of the extensive English acceptance of the enclosure movement
Arthur Young
English agricultural experimentalist
Large-scale enclosure is necessary to achieve progress
Political Arithmetic
Why enclosure is amazing
Young
proletarianization
Transformation of large numbers of small peasant farmers into landless rural wage earners
Improvements in technology = fewer laborers needed = unemployment = many move to the city and work in factories