Technology Adaptation: Agricultural Revolution in 17th–19th-Century Britain 275sainfoin and burnet and rib grass.^2 The Norfolk Four Course rotation has become
a classic model of intensification in the agricultural revolution. The introduction
of roots and clovers permitted a change from spring cereal–winter cereal fallow to
spring cereal–clover–winter cereal–root crops. Thus the proportion of land devoted
to cereals declines from 66 per cent to 50 per cent, but for fodder crops it increases
from zero to 50 per cent. But this idealized pattern was rarely adopted without
some local experimentation and adaptation. On his 75-hectare farm Biddell con-
tinually changed the pattern to suit his needs. Sometimes it closely reflected the
Four Course, as in Holly Bush field between 1807–17, but then an extra wheat
crop is slipped in after beans in 1810 (Table 12.3). On Paddock field by compari-
son, wheat is grown in five out of seven years between 1807–13. In the second
period the pattern is more varied, as an increasing number of crops are tested. In
all he grew 28 different species of crops, with a maximum of 14 in any year. Of the
introductions coleseed, flax, lucerne, sainfoin, hemp, wurzel, white and Swedish
turnip, and Gold of Pleasure were grown for less than 3 years, and appear to have
been rejected as unsuitable; whilst carrot, potato, tares, trefoil, red clover, radish,
beetroot, rye grass, swede and mustard were absorbed into the rotation pattern
(Biddell, no date). But despite this experimentation he did not greatly vary the
proportion of land devoted to each of four classes of crop, namely cereals, roots,
legumes and grasses plus miscellaneous vegetable and fibre crops.
This impression of local adaptation is further strengthened by the rotation pat-
terns recorded elsewhere in Suffolk – in the County Report Young records 24 dif-
ferent variations in the Four Course rotation (Young, 1813a). Nonetheless, not all
farmers were experimental. Two neighbours of Biddell’s followed unvarying pat-
terns: one rotated wheat-ley-barley-clover or beans, with an equal proportion of
each crop on his 15 fields; and another kept to an unchanging Four Course pattern
involving winter wheat–ley–spring cereal–legume, only very occasionally inserting
a crop of peas or rye (Cooper, 1827; Pettite, 1830).
Not only did farmers experiment with the type of crops grown, they also care-
fully analysed profitability. Coke relied solely upon roots and artificial grasses to
feed his sheep. Already convinced of the benefit of sainfoin, and wanting a replace-
ment for red clover, he set aside a 12-hectare piece of land in the middle of a large
clover and rye grass field to experiment with trefoil, white clover, cow grass, rib grass
and burnet. In the first year Coke observed that the sheep voluntarily fed on the new
crops. The first two trials were successful and by the third year he had extended the
experiment to 90 hectares. Having observed the experiment Young said ‘this is in
truth doing justice to the new husbandry, by practising it with a spirit formed to
establish it on the unerring dictates of experience’ (Young, 1784a).
There were other experiments too. Bakewell repeated for several years an
experiment to determine both the best fodder crop and method of harvesting. He
sowed five strips in one field with rye grass, red clover, white clover, red/white clo-
ver mix and red clover/rye grass mix, and then overlaid these by mowing or grazing
by cattle or sheep – the most productive treatment was mowing the red clover/rye
grass mix (Pawson, 1957). And Young himself kept permanent experimental grounds