Sustainable Agriculture and Food: Four volume set (Earthscan Reference Collections)

(Elle) #1
Technology Adaptation: Agricultural Revolution in 17th–19th-Century Britain 281

old breeds (Russell, 1986). Over a shorter period, Count Magzie of Silesia reported
that sheep fed with potatoes over winter grew much better than those fed oats
(Magzie, 1799). Russell has, however, suggested that the results of contemporary
trials should be treated with caution, as design and execution varied widely (Rus-
sell, 1986).


Experiments with irrigation


A significant innovation of the agricultural revolution that improved internal
resource use was irrigation. Water was diverted from streams and rivers to irrigate
meadows, so producing spring growth some 4–6 weeks ahead of dryland mead-
ows, a reliable hay crop in July, and further growth during the late summer.
Although costs for surveying, design and construction were relatively high, the
returns to investment were good (Bowie, 1987b). The value of the ‘early bite’ was
central to the production of early lambs, and particularly to small farmers for
whom ‘even a small watermeadow which will produce an early crop of spring feed
at the very time of the greatest pressure ... must be more valuable to a poor arable
farm than can be imagined’ (Smith, 1806, quoted in Bowie, 1987b). Winter cereal
yields also improved, as livestock were no longer fed off young cereal plants at this
time. Hay production from good watermeadows was roughly double that of dry-
land meadows (Bowie, 1987b).
Bakewell experimented with irrigation to improve grass yields, constructing
channels that eventually reached almost half of his farm, and then tested various
‘proof pieces’, as he called the treatments (Pawson, 1957). In one experiment he
divided these into treatments with irrigation, no irrigation, irrigation plus manure,
irrigation and no manure, spring water and stream water. He was proud that his
livestock were fed exclusively on farm-produced fodder, and that he had invented
a further use for these channels, namely the transport, or ‘navigation’, of turnips.
At harvest, turnips were flung into the nearest channel and transported up to a
mile distant, arriving clean and washed (Pawson, 1957). Other crops, such as car-
rots and potatoes, were put on specially constructed boats as they did not float.
Elsewhere, irrigation was valued for the suspended silt it brought. In eastern
Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Norfolk, water was directed into temporary enclo-
sures, or warps, about 2 metres high and constructed from timber, earth or lime-
stone. As the water drained away, so a 15–40cm layer of fertile silt remained
(Beastall, 1978; Young, 1813b). The impact of warping on land value was signifi-
cant, sandy soil improving from £12 to £150–250 per hectare (Beastall, 1978).
With the addition of cattle and horse manures, warping fostered the local diversi-
fication of Lincolnshire agriculture to market gardening of carrots, onions, apples,
peas, potatoes, flax, hemp and hops. Warping farmers also had ready access to
transport to distant urban markets as they were close to large rivers.
As with all irrigation systems an ingredient of success is good community
cooperation. Warps occasionally broke their banks and flooded neighbours’ land;
and watermeadows needed agreements before construction. In the Itchen Valley,

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