The Eneclosure Movement: The Growth Of The Agricultural Revolution

During the time period of 1865-1900 American agriculture changed greatly. Several components such as technology, government policy, and economic conditions caused agriculture to transform in the way it did. The main advancements in technology were new farming machinery and the growth in the railroad, both benefited the farmers grow and move crops. The government policies seemed to never favor the farmers, they passed laws making it harder for farmers to make a living. The economic conditions for farmers became rough due to the price of crops dropping from overproduction.

Economically, the Agricultural Revolution majorly impacted the way of life in the Europe, through new technological farming advancements and improved land efficiency, ultimately leading to a greater abundance of food. Compared to feudal society when people depended on small individual crop yields, many fields were combined in order to produce much larger harvests, increasing the bounty of food overall. Improved land efficiency came with new innovative ideas, including crop rotation. Allowing nutrients such as nitrogen to return to the soil, crop rotation along with fodder crops rotated the fields of crops every few years, leading to more successful yields of crops. Additional advancements in farming technology, such as the seed drill, helped

Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth century, a lack of a consistent and reliable food supply in Britain led to a rise in prices that threatened the lives of many poor British people; the poor could not obtain food regularly due to the rise in food prices and thus, only could survive through charity. On the other hand, the rise in prices put landlords in better financial situations and caused them to make innovations in farming to further increase their agricultural profit; these innovations in farming became known as the Agricultural Revolution. The Agricultural Revolution impacted the society of Great Britain through an increase in food production, a decrease in food prices, and an increase in the amount of enclosures. The Agricultural

Some of the other areas that were motivated by this movement were in the way we cultivate our goods, the mode of communication and the need for better transportation for goods. During the Agricultural Revolution, the farmers were introduced to a new way of cultivating ten times the area of land that they originally were able to do. The reason was that the greatest invention of this period came along and was introduced as the steel plow. Another area that made a drastic change was in the way that society received communication with the telegraph. This concept would ensure that individuals would receive political news, the price of goods or when merchandise was available within moments of it being sent over the wires. However, there was still a need for technology changes that would increase production and transportation. Although it took several years to complete the Transportation Revolution, still it was the start of transporting goods in a more efficient manner. This new technology would help to upgrade steamboats for the new canals being built, and later the development of railroad engines and cars for faster travel using the new railroad tracks, In fact, by 1860 they had laid more than thirty thousand miles of train track throughout the

Brilliant farming ideas came out of the Agricultural Revolution, but there were also negative effects. One negative effect would have to be that farmers would need larger amounts of raw goods in order to maintain their increasing outputs.

The supply of food had to be able to feed more people and ensure stability. The traditional method would often see poor harvest or shortages of land, the new methods the Agricultural Revolution provided ensured the stability that was needed in Europe. Dikes and drain land was developed so farmers and landlords could farm larger areas. They also experimented with new crops that would restore the soil and supply more animal food. The iron plow was another great agricultural innovation because it allowed land to be cultivated longer without having to be left unplanted. Crop rotation and a new method of animal breeding also contributed to the success of the Agricultural Revolution. However, these new methods caused peasant revolts because it challenged the traditional peasant ways of production. The increased production of food with the new and efficient production methods allowed death rates to fall and children to grow because people were more nouritoused. The increase in food production allowed Europeans to grow without the fear of

The Agricultural Revolution was a time period in which farmers begin to use efficient ways to plant things. This event led to fewer people being needed on farms since the machines used for farming only need a few workers. Because farming took fewer workers, the population of Europe increased. Workers were able to have a life outside of the harsh labor of farming. The Agricultural Revolution helped paved the way for the Industrial Revolution in Britain. The industrial revolution was a time period in the 18th century in which the British experienced changes in technology and an increase in power. These technological changes made possible a great increase in the use of natural resources and the mass production of manufactured goods. Although the industrial revolution seemed like a helpful event to the people of Europe, it caused more damaging effects than it did good.

In Great Britain, the discovery of new land system such as the Four Field Systems leads to an Agricultural Revolution. Once people figured out how to make their land last longer an enclosure movement occurred. Shifting land ownership from everyone being able to have access to land to only certain people having ownership of land. The events that occurred in each of these countries impacted their

In addition to agriculture success, new technological advancements came from crop exchangement. New farming equipment , such as the plow, improved the New World’s economy and health. This technology advancement is important because it allowed a large area of land to be cultivated at a time, speeding up the farming process. This enabled towns to be developed around farms from crops being grown at a faster rate and land that could now be cultivated.

One of the biggest technological turning points in human population history was the Agricultural revolution. The Agricultural revolution provided a surplus of resources that increased a given population’s survival. This happens when a hunter-gatherer society learns to farm instead of solely depending on hunting for food or other resources. During the Agricultural revolution, with fertile soil and knowledge of climate, the potential of farming could produce a large surplus of resources with carrying capacity. This advancement in resource management increased life expectancy compared to previous hunter gathering societies. Nutrition is the name of the game, which provided people livelihood and health so people could live longer. This means mortality rate decreases via population surviving for longer periods of time. On a graph, population can represent the x value and resources as the y, and both values have a positive correlation. Therefore, producing more resources increases the population growth during this time of social development. During the Agricultural Revolution, a surplus of goods created a social stratification system that made populations more stable than the previous hunter-gatherers. Hm?

Between 1760 and 1880 there was a huge growth in the size of cities and a population shift as people started to move into the more industrialised areas in search of work. This was because of the transformation of agriculture. Landowners had now decided to ‘enclose’ their lands so as they realised they could make a profit from selling food as the population of Britain was increasing. Enclosure improved the ways of farming

The outcome of this farming change was higher access of food. The enclosure Movement also forced people into Industrial Revolution for example; farmers who worked in the farming industry where replaced by farming machines and where left homeless forced to find new jobs in the industrial revolution. Big business was also a change that created Mass Production. Mass Production shifted people from production at home, to production in large factories in cities. Mass production also allowed for lower prices on the good produced.

The ability of farmers to take advantage of the new tools available to them in the 1800’s is very much tied to the progress of our country at that time. The inventions of the John Deere’s steel plow made the work of one person equal that of many people previous to that, this plow allowed a person to plant many more acres of food than previous. The invention of Cyrus Hall McCormick’s mechanical reaper allowed farmers to increase from harvesting about a half acre of wheat

Around when the Industrial Revolution began, agriculture began to take a turn in it’s way of harvesting crops. New techniques of growing and tending crops spread across Europe in the 1700s. “The improved yield of the agricultural sector can be attributed to the enclosure movement and to improved techniques and practices developed during this

Meanwhile, agricultural reformers advised farmers to rotate their crops, conserve the soil, use fertilizers, adopt new crops, improve livestock breeds, and use the latest machinery. Although a few farmers practiced soil conservation by rotating crops or growing legumes, they just simply plowed up new lands when the fertility of their fields declined. Of the three main components of production—land, labor, and capital—land was the cheapest, so it made economic sense in the short run to exploit the soil to the fullest (Fite 28).