242 Agricultural Revolutions and Change
attempting to adjust the ecological balance between grain and animal production.
From the mid-18th century population began to rise and prices in turn recovered
to the original base 100 by 1765, and then advanced to 119 by 1790. After 1750
the growth of population was uninterrupted and provided some boost to demand
and the resulting recovery of prices shown in Table 11.1. In 1751 the population
was 5.8 million, and by 1771 it was 6.4 million. By the 1790s it had grown to 7.7
million (in 1791) and on to 8.7 million by 1801 (Schofield, 1994, p64). The con-
junction of this population change with the outbreak of war in 1793, a war that
lasted more or less continuously until 1815, meant that prices took off, reaching
an index on our scale of 200 by 1805 and a high point of 222 by 1812.
This conjunction of demographic and economic circumstances forced agricul-
turalists to respond by adjusting the ways they worked the land, yet ideally without
upsetting the ecological balance or compromising equitable access to resources.
The compliance of the landlords and their stewards in this role was also important
as witness their abatement of rents during times of economic distress (Turner et al,
1997, passim). But there were other ways of adjustment. The balance between
arable and pasture or meadow varied between areas and between parishes, and
altering this balance was a task for the community. At Withern with Woodthorpe
in Lincolnshire, this task is recorded in the Field Reeves Book. It is a record of the
annual decisions made about local farming (Lincolnshire Archives, Misc Dep
199/1). In March 1792 it was agreed that the occupiers would seed and stint, that
is apportion the use of the fields, as agreed by the majority. The administrators of
these decisions and rules (the field reeves) were an elected body and it was up to
them to order and direct the management of local drainage, the care of the fields,
and the regulation of the numbers of stock that were allowed to graze on the fields
at designated times of the year. For example, in November 1799 they agreed to sow
the stubble field with corn the ‘insuing year owing to the unfavourable state of the
fallows in the other field from the excessive wetness of the season’. This was a season
Table 11.1 Agricultural product price indexes for the main ‘Cash Crops’ 1650–1812Date Wheat Butter Milk Beef Mutton
1650 100 100 100 100 100
1745 68 102 112 103 83
1765 103 (100) 111 (100) 119 (100) 119 (100) 102 (100)
1790 119 (116) 121 (109) 171 (144) 156 (131) 126 (124)
1806 205 (199) 196 (177) 277 (233) 275 (231) 211 (207)
1812 222 (216) 227 (205) 359 (302) 281 (236) 222 (218)Note: 11-year moving averages, rebased on 1650. Apart from the base in 1650 the years
selected are determined by the price of wheat at the maxima, minima, the landmark price
when the base price was restored, and when the 200 index barrier was broken. (The index has
been rebased in 1765 to show the subsequent relative inflation of prices from the new base.)
Source: Adapted from Clark, 2004