Agriculture and the Landc.e. 1650-1850

“For the overwhelming majority of the population in the eighteenth century, life remained a struggle with poverty and uncertainty, with the landlord and the tax collector.” (McKay, et al., 629)

Mater Academy

AP European History

Chapter 17 – The Expansion of Europe in the 18th Century

Section 1 – Agriculture and the Land

McKay, et al., 8th edition

The Essential Questions of this Section:

• What are the causes and effects of the Agricultural Revolution?1. What were the conditions prior to the ‘Revolution?’

2. What specific advances were made to bring on the ‘Revolution?’

3. Who is effected by the changes brought forth?

Agriculture and the Land

A. The Open-Field System1. The open-field system

was the great accomplishment of medieval agriculture.

2. Three field rotations helped keep fields fertile.

3. Traditional village rights reinforced traditional patterns of farming.

4. Peasants were exploited in a number of ways, with those in eastern Europe generally the worst off.

The Gleaners – Francois Millet, 1857

• Poor French peasant women search for grains and stalks that the harvesters (background) have missed. The open-field system seen here could still be found in part so Europe in 1857, when this picture was painted. Millet is known for his great paintings expressing social themes.” (McKay, et al., 632)

How difficult was this arrangement for peasants?

• “…life in the village was unquestionably hard, and poverty was the great reality for most people. For the Beauvais region of France at the beginning of the eighteenth century, it has been carefully estimated that in good years and bad only a tenth of the peasants could live satisfactorily off the fruits of their landholdings. And this was in a rich agricultural region in a country where peasants were comparatively well-off. The privileges of Europe’s ruling elites weighed heavily on the people of the land.” (McKay, et al., 631)

Pissarro – Seated Peasant Woman, 1885

Agriculture and the Land

B. The Agricultural Revolution1. The use of more complex systems

of crop rotation increased cultivation.

2. Grain crops were alternated with nitrogen-storing crops.

3. Instead of allowing land to lie fallow, nitrogen-storing crops such as peas, beans, root crops such as turnips and potatoes, and clovers and grasses.

4. By growing food on lands which were previously lying fallow, Europeans could increase the amount of arable land by 50%; a very significant amount.

Agriculture and the Land

1. The open-field system was ended by “enclosing” the fields, particularly in England.

2. The enclosure movement meant an end to common lands and to the independence of the rural poor who relied on them to survive.

The Leadership of the Low Countries

1. The Dutch advantage was due to a very dense population.

2. Vermuyden, a Dutch engineer helped with drainage projects in England to claim more arable land

3. Jethro Tull gained fame in experimental agriculture and animal husbandry.

4. By the mid-eighteenth century, English agriculture was in the process of a radical transformation.

The Cost of Enclosure

1. Half of all English land was enclosed by 1750.

2. By 1700 a distinctive pattern of landownership and production existed in England.

3. Tenant farmers were the key to mastering new methods of farming.

4. Enclosure marked the emergence of market-oriented estate agriculture and of a landless rural proletariat.

Questions to assess your understanding

1. What was the most prevalent system of land usage in Europe during this time?

2. What percentage of western Europeans were involved in agriculture by the end of the 17th century?

3. Who directed large drainage projects in England? What impact did this have on the society?

4. What can you attribute the increased use of fertilizer to during the agricultural revolution?

5. What factors contributed to increased agricultural production in western Europe?

6. Where was the agriculture revolution first manifested?

7. Who was Jethro Tull and what were his contributions? What scientific method did he use to arrive at his conclusions?

8. Upon which social group did the success of the English agricultural revolution depend?

9. What were the “Enclosure Acts” and what was the impact on society?

The Essential Questions of this Section:

• What are the causes and effects of the Agricultural Revolution?1. What were the conditions prior to the ‘Revolution?’

2. What specific advances were made to bring on the ‘Revolution?’

3. Who is effected by the changes brought forth?