236 Agricultural Revolutions and Change
process was not understood at the time. The end result was the crop, but measured
through yields or by the deterioration or improvement in those yields according to
the laboratory of experience over the generations. By such methods, for example,
medieval farmers in Oxfordshire solved the problem of nitrogen management
(Newman and Harvey, 1997). Ecological considerations also involved application
of animal manures, and thus returning the nutrients otherwise removed by farm-
ing. We take this as a given in modern society, but in the past it came about by
experiment and experience. The integration of plants and animals was essential,
and in a world of limited resources recycling evolved as the antidote to resource
loss. In the words of Sir Albert Howard in 1940 there was an ecological balance in
which:
Mother earth never attempts to farm without livestock; she always raises mixed crops;
great pains are taken to preserve the soil and prevent erosion; the mixed vegetable and
animal wastes are converted into humus; there is no waste; the processes of growth and the
processes of decay balance one another; ample provision is made to maintain large reserves
of fertility; the greatest care is taken to store the rainfall; both plants and animals are left
to protect themselves from disease. (quoted by Jackson in Soule and Piper, 1992, pxiv)Figure 11.1 Density of parliamentary enclosure, c. 1740–1840 (England only)