changes in agriculture Flashcards
what is ‘common land’
land in which people other than the owner have rights to use that land in certain ways
what was the situation with land in the 1660s
much of the land was not subject to private property rights but instead to common property rights
what was the traditional method of farming
- the open field system
- the cultivated arable land was divided into a number of large fields
- land holdings of individual farmers were scattered
what would occur in the open field system and what did the farmers have to do
- every year, all the farmers had to grow the same crops
- the third field would be left fallow in order for the soil to recover
what was a long-established common right exercised by the occupiers of farm lands and cottages
- the ‘common of shack’
- the right to graze livestock on the corn stubbles left on the cultivated land after the crops have been harvested
what did the common land of a manor/village consist of
consisted of pastures were those who lived in the village had the right to graze animals during the summer months and woodland where they had the right to find food and resources
what could the common ‘waste’ include
could include small areas of stony ground, moors, bogs and hillsides
what was common ‘waste’ used for by the villagers
- villagers could use the waste for collecting wild berries
- cutting pleat for fuel
- gathering clay, gravel and stone for repairing houses and roads
how was the system of land enclosure inefficient
- fields were often very large and so efficiency was undermined by the need to move men and implements form a strip in one field to a strip in another
- farmhouses were usually grouped together in the centre of the village and more time and effort was spent getting to the distant parcels of land
- weeds spread easily from strip to strip
- leaving a field to fallow meant that a significant portion of arable land wasn’t used
- existence of many different farmer’s strips in one field led to encroachment and damage which then led to disputes
why did methods of farming start to change (which led to acceleration of land enclosure)
- population rose and so people needed more food
- farmers could make big profits which made them keen to produce more
what type of enclosure was most common and what was it
- ‘enclosure by agreement’
- owners of land in a village agreed amongst themselves to enclose a large part of the fields and commons
- this was to reallocate the land in a separate compact farms
what were the four innovations that boosted English agriculture
- enclosure and crop rotation
- water meadows
- specialisation of farming
- introduction/greater use of new crops
what were water meadows
engineered channels were dug so that a thin sheet of water flowed on to meadows at certain times of the year
how did water meadows boost English agriculture
- floating in winter reduced the effects of frost
- deposited nutrient-laden silt and caused beneficial oxidation of the soil
- raised soil temp
- provided an ‘early bite’ of grass for sheep flocks weeks before other pastures were ready
effect of water meadows and how they changed agriculture
- before their introduction, size of sheep flocks was limited by the amount of food available to sustain them through winter, particularly during the ‘hungry gap’
- larger sheep flocks could be kept, more manure was produced
- arable cultivation could be extended to grow more corn
