Farming As Fashion
(Part Two of Three)
Georgian Farming Technique Changes
Deforestation had
not been segregated to the seventeenth century alone. Losing forests came at a
faster clip during the eighteenth century. The planting of grain in the areas
where the unwanted woods had been removed created a visual reminder of
Britain’s ability to conquer and bend nature to the will of the English
gentleman farmer. “We convert huge forests into pleasing fields, and exhibit
through these… provinces so singular a display of easy subsistence and…
felicity” that every one beheld their beauty.[1]
The government created a formal analysis of whether the loss of oak (that had
been the foundation of the ship building economy) was economically feasible
when placed alongside the proposed increase of cereal that was to feed the
nation.[2]
So much oak had indeed been lost, that farmers had been encouraged to plant
oaks alongside drives and used as borders.
Border hedges
enclosed other areas that had previously been considered wasteland. Fens, which
were low-lying lands that had been usually covered in water such as marshes and
bogs, began to be drained by rerouting rivers. The Bedford River became the Old
Bedford River, and the New Bedford River by straightening out the waterway into
two direct lines, and speeding up the flow.[3]
New windmill drainage also assisted in the draining of the lowlands. This, in
fact, speeded up the process. Over 700 windmills, costing around £17,000 drained some 30,000 acres of
fenland.[4]
“Drainage schemes were often uncoordinated, so that drainage of one portion of
the fen was often achieved at the expense of inundation others… Arable land use
was also at a low level in the silt fens for much of the eighteenth century.”[5]
Because of such conditions, landlords allowed, “Only limited conversion to
tilth.”[6]
As a result of small leaseholds required by the large landholders, by the end
of the eighteenth century, the fenlands had gone from fishing and fowling areas
to some of the most productive farmland in the country. Most of the arable fields
and improved pastures had been the best grazing marsh in the country.
Suppressing common rights of the people had awarded the absentee landlords much
property in these areas. [7]
Grazing land
became plowed fields, and vice versa for landlords in Georgian England. Many
different experiments occurred as the farmer tried to find out which
formulation created the better use of property. This was because “no growth in real grain output early in the
eighteenth century” occurred.[8]
It was generally understood, however, that the larger farms were much more
productive. Simply meaning, that where there was more land, more produce should
have been grown.
Because of larger
production, it was also understood that the larger plantations had the
surpluses, opulence, and social position that the smaller farms did not.[9]
These large estates still did not generate profits as “nine-tenths of the…
planters of [the] day were… failures”.[10]
Washington’s profit of his estate, considered profitable for the century, had a
return of only 2.25%.[11]
He was “a good businessman” and made “farming pay”.[12]
If such a low return was considered profitable, and he had been a better
businessperson and farmer than the average husbandman of the time, then this
was simple proof that farming had been unprofitable, even for the large elite
plantation owners.
Plantation owners
of this time tried to procure higher output by changing the rotation system
from the three-field system to a four-field system. Losing fallow land and
planting crops that placed nitrogen back into the soil helped this situation.
Turnips and clover were the two main nitrogen-bearing fodder crops that
revolutionized the country, and therefore the world. Created in Norfolk, the
system retained the region’s location as its title.[13]
The Norfolk four-field system took over the world, not necessarily because it
revolutionized farming methods (which it did), but because of the reports
that the larger estates had started using it. The popularity of the methods
used by the elites raced throughout England. Even with this new system,
“little.. fortune was made by the sale of products from… farm[s]. Few farmers
[had] grown rich that way…. Wealth was due in part to inheritance and a
fortunate marriage, and most of all to the incremental increase on land.”[14]
Many estate owners were “shrewd enough to buy at a low rate and hold until it
became more valuable.”[15]
Valuable estates
produced the principal crop of wheat, just as most of England and her
colonies. Other crops included barley,
oats, peas, beans, and tobacco, and the fodder crops of turnips and clover
where also grown. Rye had been the principle food crop at the beginning of the
century, but was replaced by the higher yielding, and more popular wheat very
early on.[16] Barley had
surpassed wheat as principal crop in the latter half of the eighteenth century,
but wheat regained its role as leader in 1800. Rye output dropped dramatically
at that time, never to be a leader again.[17]
The Georgians had not been interested in yield, as such, but more interested in
sales price.[18] As output
had not kept up with demand, prices rose, but profit did not because labor
prices also increased.[19]
Since “for the wealthy, the countryside was not agriculture”, this simply had
not been important to them.[20]
Agriculture’s
Norfolk System created a system where fodder plants grew instead of allowing
the field to lay fallow. The fodder was then collected and delivered directly
to the animals. Animals had been “increasingly stall fed” during the eighteenth
century, which “allowed for better husbanding of animal manure.”[21]
Gangs of women and children went into the field and pulled the crop and carried
it to the animals. The animals then devoured the crop in their winterized
location. Corn straw was then placed in
the stall as feed and bedding for the animals. The animals urinated and
defecated on the bedding, which allowed for composition of the straw. At the
end of this procedure, this fully loaded manure was taken and laid out over the
fields as fertilizer by the working field men.[22]
Fertilization of
fields had occurred for centuries, but this newly, high potent soil conditioner
encouraged better cultivation. Fields of better grass also stimulated the
improvement of pasture animals. This would never had occurred if enclosure had
not increased dramatically during the eighteenth century.[23]
There had been four main outcomes of the further enclosing of the countryside.
Enclosure dealt the “final blow to a long-established lower-class domestic
economy.”[24] It allowed
for higher output and better profits to those with more property. Enclosure
allowed the “greedy tyrannies of the wealthy few to oppress the indignant many.[25]”
More importantly, it fundamentally changed the landscape physically, and also
“turned the land into an absolute private property” of which the wealthy
owners, who had owned most of the enclosed land, could boast ownership.[26]
Owners and
husbandmen found it easier to boast the most modern technology. Threshing
machines had been introduced late in the 1700s.[27]
Just as modern men, the Georgians produced their equipment with pride whenever
possible. George Washington proudly showed his horse-drawn threshing machine to
many visitors.[28] Seed drills
had been invented in the seventeenth century, but did not become fashionable
until the eighteenth. Even though they technically did not make any significant
change in output, many farmers began using them.[29]
The newest ploughs had been improved. This was accomplished by the advancing
functionality, and the stronger materials used in their manufacturing. Steel
was harder, which allowed the fertilizer to be turned into the under layers of
earth, which also allowed the seeds to be planted easier.[30]
St. John de Crevecoeur proudly boasted to his friend, “Had you never tried, you
never had learned how to mend and make your ploughs.”[31]
Ploughs of the
general population of farmers had obviously been of lesser quality than those
used by the wealthier husbandmen, which was also true of their livestock. The
peasantry began their agricultural revolution foray of livestock with pigs.
Pigs had been the very first animals that were bred specifically for better
quality food. These animals were chosen because of their large litters, short
gestational period, and their ready reproduction.[32]
Bacon, being the main product for hogs, needed to have extremely high fat
content during this time period. Breeding books were not kept regularly for
these experiments until 1791, of which the “date of the birth of the piglets
(known as the ‘brawning’), the size of litter, and the number of piglets born
alive and dead, as well as the number reared” were the only things that were
recorded.[33] Even here,
there had been no mention of their quality, and there was no appreciation of
breeds included either.[34]
However, breeding did affect end use, and the carcass weight (the weight of the
animal after slaughter) was considered the best price, even if this was not
necessarily cost effective after all of the expenditures of raising the animal
had been tallied. [35] A very fat
animal had more meat than a thinner one, and the animals with large carcasses
were fashionable beginning in the late seventeenth century and continued
through the eighteenth and into the nineteenth centuries.[36]
The middle of the
eighteenth century also saw changes in sheep farming. Until this time, the
animal had mainly been kept for manure purposes. Breeding moved sheep into wool
production as “market conditions were such as to form a strong inducement to
attend to the production of wool to the neglect of the carcass.”[37]
The 1720’s found that English wool prices dropped as Irish wool became more
fashionable.[38] Then, as
the middle of the century dawned along with the popular four-field agricultural
system, the sheep once again moved to a manure-based animal. However, the long
woolen sheep which produced better manure also grew the better wool that was
soft and wearable.[39]
Once again, popularity ruled the breeding process. During the latter half of
the century prices fell, only to rise during the Napoleonic Wars. This sales
increase obviously occurred because of the needs for uniforms for the soldiers.[40]
Prices fell again, this time dramatically, due to an over abundance of stock.
Heavy duties were then issued to foreign fleece to try and keep wool prices
high for the Brits. Along with increasing the wool supply, this tariff ended up
having the opposite effect than the one desired. [41]
Pride had kept this industry going, not income.
Originally Written for class at American Military University
[1]J. Hector St. John de
Crevecoeur. Letters from an American Farmer. (1782), Location 408.
Kindle Edition.
[2] Citation
needed
[3] Williamson, 103.
[4] Ibid, 109.
[5] Ibid, 107.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid, 107,
108, 112.
[8] Turner, 327.
[9] Ibid, 416.
[10] Haworth,
2616.
[11] Ibid, 2675.
[12] Ibid, 2693.
[13] Turner,
873.
[14] Haworth,
2616.
[15] Ibid, 2621.
[16] Jon Sutherland
and Diane Canwell. Images of the Past: Farming Industry. (Barnsley,
South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Books, LTD., 2010.), 7.
[17] Turner,
847.
[18] Ibid, 564.
[19] Ibid, 249.
[20] Manor
House, Episode Four, Video, produced by Caroline Ross-Perie (2003; Arlington, VA: PBS: Public
Broadcasting System, 2012.)
[21] Turner,
282.
[22] Taylor
Speer-Sims. “Landscape
Changes Caused by Different Farming Techniques”. (Charles Town,
WV: APUS, September 7, 2012).
https://edge.apus.edu/xsl-portal/site/200576/page/7a30ccfd-7295-4113-b97c-e6c08f9f2793.
(Accessed September 27, 2012).
[23] Turner,
1062.
[24] Porter.
[25] Ibid,
211-212.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Turner,
1114.
[28] Haworth,
2555.
[29] Turner,
1098.
[30] Haworth,
1008.
[31] de
Crevecoeur, 498.
[32] Turner, 51.
[33] Ibid, 1168.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Ibid, 1983.
[36] Ibid, 1991.
[37] J. A. Perkins.
Sheep Farming in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Lincolnshire.
(Lincolnshire: Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology, 1977.), 6.
[38] Ibid, 12.
[39] Ibid, 15.
[40] Ibid, 17.
[41] Ibid, 20.
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Mary,
ReplyDeleteThis sounds fantastic! I can't wait to see it and report back to you. Unfortunately that will be after Halloween because of the event that we are having at the Tanner House Museum, where I currently work. However, I am all aflutter!