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Home The Industrial Revolution and Social Progress, 1750-1909 The Industrial Revolution (before 1815) |
The Industrial Revolution (before 1815)The first of our industries perhaps to be affected by the scientific spirit was our oldest - that of agriculture. Up till the eighteenth century arable land had, in most districts, been treated as in the Middle Ages; it was sown with corn for two years and then left fallow for a year in order to recuperate its fertility. The discovery was, however, made that by the cultivation of roots, the recuperative advantages of a bare fallow might be secured without the loss of a year's crop. More over, the roots both gave the opportunity for clearing the soil and provided food for the cattle and sheep during the winter. ConÂsequently there was more manure, and the fertility of the land was correspondingly increased. Tradition says that " Turnip" Townshend) George I's minister, was the first to realize the importance of this discovery, and to develop on his Norfolk estates a four-year rotation of crops (e.g. wheat, some form of roots, barley, a mixture of clover and some form of grasses), never taking two successive corn crops off the same land; and this principle of rotation was generally adopted in the latter part of the eighteenth century in most parts of England (There is a story that an archdeacon took a rector to task for growing turnips in a church yard. "This must not occur again," he said. "Oh no, sir, next year it will be barley!" was the reply of the unrepentant rector).Moreover, the scientific breeding of live stock, especially by Bakewell (He was born in 1725 and died in 1794. People used to come from all over the world to see his bull "Twopenny" and his ram "Two-pounder"; and in his kitchen he would entertain "Russian princes, French and German royal dukes. British peers, and sightseers of every description"), the developer of the famous Leicestershire breed of sheep, produced such changes that by 1800 the average weight of sheep was nearly three times and of cattle more than twice what it was at the beginning of the eighteenth century. New forms of manure for the land, new artificial foods for stock, were also discovered. The institution at the end of the century of the Smithfidd Club for the encouragement of stock breeding, and of a new government department, the Board of Agriculture, are significant of the great interest taken in agriculture, an interest shared by George III himself, who started the model farm at Windsor, and wrote articles in agricultural newspapers. |
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