dramatically changed the geography of agriculture in England, and in the long
term the movement led to higher agricultural productivity. In the short term, how-
ever, it removed many smaller farmers from the countryside, a large number of
whom migrated to the cities to find work in the newly emerging factories of the
Industrial Revolution.
The next phase of the agricultural revolution in Great Britain may be dated from
the early 1800s, with the widespread introduction of machines, first powered by
draft animals and later using steam power. As was the case with enclosure,
increased mechanization that replaced farm labor was extremely unpopular, espe-
cially with the large number of landless agricultural workers, a group made quite
numerous by the previous decades of enclosure and other changes in the agricul-
tural system. In some instances farm workers reacted violently to the application
of machinery to agriculture, as in the case of the Swing Riots of the early 1830s,
in which thousands of laborers attacked and destroyed threshing machines that
had come into use across England. Such revolts had little effect on the introduction
of machinery, however, and by the 1870s steam-powered mechanical ploughs and
other devices were transforming British agriculture. Mechanization had several
long-term effects, including a steady rise in productivity, a huge loss of jobs in
the agricultural sector, and a subsequent shift of labor to the urban areas, where
it was quickly absorbed by rapidly expanding industry. This trend would continue
through the first decades of the 20th century and was mirrored by similar changes
in North America and elsewhere in Europe.
In the years between 1700 and 1900 the agricultural landscape of Great Britain
was completely transformed, and the age of modern agricultural production
emerged. The benefits of this process are evident: after the early 1700s, food short-
ages due to crop failures in England and Scotland were extremely rare, and out-
right famine was essentially unknown in the region, with the obvious exception
of the Irish Potato Famine of the mid-19th century. Techniques such as crop rota-
tion, fertilization, contour plowing, and soil conservation, along with the increas-
ing application of powered machinery to production, resulted in astonishing
gains in both the productivity per unit of agricultural land and of the average
British farmer. These spectacular gains were not achieved without significant
social and economic disruption, however, as large numbers of rural workers had
to leave the countryside to find employment in the alien environment of Britain’s
growing industrial cities. Indeed, without the revolution in agriculture begun
several decades earlier, the Industrial Revolution in England likely would have
taken quite a different form.
Some would argue that the agricultural revolution is a continuous process, not
only in Great Britain, but around the world. In many lesser-developed countries,
Agricultural Revolution 7