Starter: What’s this and how did it change the world. 1 merit for the best answer. GO!!!!

The Agricultural Revolution

Learning objective: To understand how farming changed from 1700-1900

and the impact this had on society

The Agricultural Revolution

• The changes we are going to study did not happen suddenly, this was a process of change which took place in more than two hundred years (roughly 1700-1900) and new technology and ideas were implemented in different ways in different areas.

The old system: Strip Farming

People have to walk over your strips to reach theirs

Field left fallow

Seeds sown by hand

Animals can trample crops and spread diseaseTime wasted moving

from strip to strip

No drainage and poor iirrigation

The old system: Strip Farming

The old system: problems• Peasants had very little protection under the law or political

representation.• The strips of land a peasant family was given would change every couple

of years so there was no incentive to improve them.• Peasants families usually farmed small patches of land so there was no

incentive to use machines. • Farms did not produce a very large surplus as they were extremely

inefficient. • The population was growing very quickly: and the agricultural industry

was struggling to feed all of these people. 8.7 million in 1800 16.7 million in 1851 41.6 million in 1901

• Very few peasants were literate. This meant that new ideas did not spread very quickly.

The new system: benefits • The formation of the Bank of England in 1694 gave farmers

access to credit. When farmers were able to take loans they could invest in their land.

• Under King William III, who took power after the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688, and the monarchs who followed the power of landowners was reduced and ordinary people gained increasing representation and protection from the judiciary.

• The Protestant church in England emphasised the importance of every peasant being able to read the bible for him or herself. This had a knock on effect as literacy allowed new ideas to spread quickly.

The new system: Enclosures• This meant dividing the open

land into small fields and putting hedges and fences around them.

• Families would be given one larger plot of land and their ownership was protected by English, Scottish or Welsh common law.

• They now had an incentive to improve the land and could develop it using new technology.

The new system: Selective Breeding

• Some farmers such as Robert Bakewell and the Culley brothers concentrated on selective breeding.

• By mating 2 animals together with desirable characteristics they could improve their cattle over time. Their sheep could have thicker fleeces, their pigs could be heavier and their cows could produce more milk.

• Agriculturalists were influenced by the writings of Charles Darwin.

• You can tell how successful they were: • In 1710 the average weight for cattle was

168 Kg by 1795 - it was 363 Kg.

The new system: Crop Rotation

The new system: Crop Rotation • Charles ‘Turnip’ Townsend introduced the Norfolk Four-Course crop

rotation (wheat, turnips, barley, clover) to Britain. Turnips were used as a cleansing crop to allow the land to be hoed to kill the weeds, and clover was grown to replace the nutrients in the soil that the crops had depleted.

• This rotation prevented land from lying fallow and both turnips and clover were fodder crops, which could be fed to animals to allow more of them to survive cold winters.

• Used a method called marling, which mixed rich subsoil with a poorer sandy soil to produce better quality crops and increasingly more profit.

• Gave his tenant farmers longer leases to encourage them to invest more money to experiment with new ideas and improving their land.

The new system: Crop Rotation

The new system: Fertilizers and Irrigation

• There was also a ‘scientific revolution’ with provided many improvements in technology.

• Chemists realized that animal manure would also increased the fertility of the soil and in the 19th century chemical fertilizers were created.

• Water meadows were used to improve irrigation this was simply the channeling of water from streams into farm terraces

The new system: Technology• Seed drill• Horse drawn

plough• Threshers • Mowers • Combines• Balers

Task• Imagine you are a farmer in

Scotland who has implemented lots of new farming techniques and you are now making a ton of cash! Wohoo!

• Write a letter to your brother in Dorset explaining all the changes that have taken place how he can improve his farm. Use pictures to show him what’s going on.