Technology Adaptation: Agricultural Revolution in 17th–19th-Century Britain 259of on farm resources provided that farming households themselves are fully involved
in the generation of technologies, in their extension to other farmers, and in the
experimental adaptation to local conditions (Jintrawet et al, 1985; Farrington and
Martin, 1987; Chambers et al, 1989; Fujisaka, 1989; Bunch, 1990; Pretty, 1990b).
In many locations, small revolutions in institutional support and farming practice
are occurring. Returns to investment are rapid; the poor become better off and
more secure; the region produces surpluses; and the country as a whole benefits.
Components of a revolution
Such a technical and biological revolution also occurred in rural Britain during the
17th to 19th centuries. During a period in which there was no government ministry
of agriculture, no national agricultural research or extension institutions, no radio or
television, no pesticides or inorganic fertilizers, and poor rural transport infrastruc-
ture, aggregate cereal and livestock production increased to unprecedented levels. In
the 150 years after 1700, wheat production grew four fold, and barley and oats three
fold; the numbers of cattle supplied to markets tripled and sheep doubled (Chartres,
1985; Holderness, 1989; Mingay, 1989; Beckett, 1990). This remarkable achieve-
ment was brought about in two ways: the extension, largely by farmers, of new
technologies that intensified on-farm resource use; and the promotion of extensifica-
tion by the conversion of common pastures and woodlands to private farming.
New crops offered diversified opportunities to farmers by allowing intensified
use of land. Increased fodder supply meant more livestock and so increased supply of
manures improved soil fertility. Selective breeding of livestock produced more effi-
cient converters of feed to meat, so permitting slaughter at an earlier age and higher
stocking rates. New labour-saving machinery released farmers from the labour-bot-
tlenecks at cereal and hay harvests; and new tools and techniques improved the effi-
ciency of seed sowing. Underfield drainage increased cropping options on marginal
land; and irrigation of watermeadows increased the supply of fodder, particularly
during the late winter shortage. Complementarities with urban and industrial
growth – the British population tripled between 1700 and 1850 – also meant
increased soil fertility as agriculture assimilated industrial and human wastes.
Coupled with this intensification were the dual enclosing processes of open-
field conversion to private farming, and the enclosure of common property natural
resources to produce more private farm land. Whether the former had an impact
upon agricultural output is controversial; the latter, through the passing of more
than 3500 Bills in Parliament, increased aggregate output as more than 650,000
hectares of woods, pastures, marshes and fens between 1730 and 1820 were
enclosed (Jones, 1967). Both intensification and extensification resulted in a net
benefit to the economy through growth in agricultural production – both yields
per hectare and area under cereals roughly doubled between 1700 and 1850
(Turner, 1982, 1984; Overton, 1984a; Allen and O’Grada, 1988; Holderness,
1989; Beckett, 1990). But the costs attendant upon the two strategies differed.
Intensification mostly used on-farm resources, absorbed industrial wastes, and did