Systematic Crop Rotation Transforms Agriculture

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Systematic Crop Rotation Transforms Agriculture

Overview

The French landowner and lawyer Olivier de Serres (1539-1619) published in 1600 his book Théatre d'agriculture, which described systematic crop rotation for the first time. His ideas were developed further in England by Sir Richard Weston (1591-1652) in his book Discourse of Husbandry Used in Brabant and Flanders, Showing the Wonderful Improvement of Land There, and Serving as a Pattern for Our Practice in This Commonwealth (1650). Neither man invented the ideas they collected in their books. However, their descriptions helped to spread the efficient farming practices that had developed in some European regions in the sixteenth century to meet the demands of a rising population. As such they demonstrate the importance of microinventions, in this case those small changes that over centuries gradually improved farming technology and productivity, and of the dissemination of these best practices throughout Europe by the printing press, perhaps the key technological invention of the period because it helped to spread knowledge of other inventions.

Background

Europe before the late eighteenth century was a subsistence society. Its agricultural productivity was so low that in some regions up to 90% of the population had to labor in the fields to ensure that crops and farm animals produced enough food for the whole population, and to plant the next harvest and breed the next generation of animals. This was because at any one time up to one third of the fertile arable land was left fallow, unplanted and used for rough grazing. Villagers practiced an ancient crop rotation that divided their lands into three large fields, each of which was successively planted in winter wheat (planted in the fall, harvested in early summer), spring wheat (planted in spring, harvested in late summer), and then left fallow, that is, allowed to grow rough grass. So every year one field in three remained fallow, in order to manure it by feeding cattle on it. The great problem was that the fallow did not provide enough food to sustain the cattle through winter, so that many had to be slaughtered in the fall. Therefore cattle could not be improved by careful breeding, and farmers also missed out on their future manure and on using their muscle power to work farm implements.

Before de Serres and Weston, many writers on farming had recommended the cultivation of fodder crops, such as clover, turnips, sainfoin, and buckwheat, to increase animal winter food stocks. This would use the ground formerly left fallow more productively and in turn produce more manure, increasing crop production and allowing more animal energy to be applied to farming. However, it is now impossible to determine where fodder crops were first grown. Clover may have been first used in northern Italy, and from there spread to Flanders (now in Belgium) and from Flanders to Germany and England after the mid-seventeenth century.

The chief importance of de Serres and Weston is that they described in detail agricultural innovations that had actually been proven to increase agricultural productivity over time. By publishing their books, they distributed this best practice all over Europe and influenced their readers to apply the ideas themselves.

De Serres was a Calvinist lawyer who lived all his life on the small family estate at Villeneuve de Berg in the Vivarais region of France, where he tested the innovations that he proposed in his Théatre d'agriculture (1600). This very popular work appeared in several editions throughout the seventeenth century. Serres surveyed all aspects of agriculture, starting with advice on running a religious Calvinist household. He discussed how to domesticate and cultivate all the plants and animals he knew. He enthusiastically advocated using irrigation to improve meadows, carefully draining land, and conserving water. He supported the sowing of "artificial grasses"—that is, nonnative fodder crops—and their use in a rotation of fields that avoided leaving them fallow. He introduced hops to France, vital for the development of the brewing industry because they preserved beer. He was the first agricultural writer to describe and encourage the cultivation of maize and potatoes, newly imported from the Americas. Eventually these new crops improved the diets of many French peasants because they were cheap and nutritious.

Around the time that he published his book, dedicated to King Henry IV of France, de Serres successfully lobbied Henry to expand sericulture, the cultivation of silkworms and the mulberry tree on whose leaves they fed. Beginning at Henry's Tuilleries palace, de Serres planted mulberry trees in many other areas of France. This laid the basis for the important French silk industry. It is little wonder that de Serres is often called the father of French agriculture.

Because France was so geographically varied and traditional localism was so strong, few of these innovations were adopted widely by French farmers. Until the French Revolution of 1789, most farmers persisted in using medieval methods, leaving a third of their land fallow, and not breeding their cattle selectively because they lacked sufficient feed to keep them through the winter. The improvement of French agricultural techniques began only just before the Revolution, and in imitation of what had been achieved in England.

England had increased its agricultural productivity by the later eighteenth century largely because writers like Sir Richard Weston had a greater impact on English society, which was vigorously developing its farming before 1650. Many earlier books on farming, such as Fitzherbert's Boke of Husbandry (1523) and Thomas Tusser's Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie (1557), summarized changes in England such as the floating of water-meadows to better feed cattle, the grafting and planting of trees, the cultivation of hops, and the management of poultry and cattle, but they also imitated the methods used in the Low Countries, now the Netherlands and Belgium. In this way the printing press helped to transfer new technology across Europe.

The Low Country farmers had to be very careful in their farming methods because this was the most densely populated area in Europe, and they also grew many industrial crops such as flax for the linen industry, red madder and blue woad for dyeing, barley and hops for brewing, hemp for ropes, and tobacco, recently introduced from North America. Farmers specialized in market-gardening of vegetables and fruit growing, which also required extreme care and the use of fertilizers from cattle-raising areas and human waste from the towns. They also changed the ancient three-field system by introducing artificial grasses. Even in the relatively small area of the Low Countries, differences in the soils and the level of the water-table required different systems. However, their treatment of the light sandy soils astonished foreign visitors like Weston, and this sandy soil system played a great part in the development of modern farming in Britain, which has similar soils, as well as other countries of the world.

Weston came to know the Low Country farming methods because he fought for the losing side in the English Civil War. A devoted supporter of Charles I, his estates were seized by Parliament in 1644, and he was forced into exile in the Low Countries until 1649. He published his Discourse of Husbandry in 1650 to spread the knowledge of the "ley" farming techniques that he saw between Antwerp and Ghent while in exile. Ley farming emphasized the careful accumulation of manure from animals hand-fed in stalls during summer with green and root crops, such as hay, clover, turnips, or flax. When the ley lands were ploughed under, the roots left in them fertilized the soil. This created a rising cycle of production, because better-manured crops produced more food for animals, which in turn produced more manure. Animals could also be kept through the winter on the reserves of larger crops, enabling them to be selectively bred and preserving their muscle power and manure.

Weston tried out this system in Surrey, England, after his return from exile. He planted flax, turnips, and oats mixed with clover, the latter mowed three times in the second year, and then left as improved grazing for four or five years before being ploughed under. More than any other individual Weston was responsible for the crop rotation system that spread over large areas of Britain after 1650.

The traditional system had used large communal open fields divided into scattered personal strips of arable land, with communal grazing rights over the fallow. This new system stimulated the conversion of the open fields into individually owned enclosed fields, because no one could grow the new fodder crops on his share of the fallow fields where cattle traditionally grazed, for they would be eaten by other people's animals as well as his own. Nor could good cattle be kept apart from the common herd that bred promiscuously and passed on diseases. Therefore in the long run traditional English society based on the communal use of arable and pasture land gave way to private farming by individuals. In the process some suffered and others prospered, increasing social inequality and leading to conflict between those who wanted to preserve traditional communal rights and those who wanted to pursue their own self-interest.

On the other hand, the greater productivity of the new kind of agriculture meant that fewer workers were needed to ensure an adequate food supply. So more labor was available for the growing requirements of industry, as the increasing demand of a rising population of generally more prosperous, better-fed people stimulated the early Industrial Revolution in Britain.

Impact

Overall, the modern world could not be possible without the innovations practiced and advocated by de Serres and Weston to increase the productivity of the soil and of the animal resources of Europe. Our modern industrial society, with its highly specialized workforce, depends on the application of technology to ensure that the tiny minority who work in agriculture can produce an adequate food supply for our growing population. Without the new rotations that allowed European farmers to bring more of their land into production and to keep more and better animals alive for their fertilizing and energy resources, the industrialized nations would still be living in a subsistence society comparable to many third-world countries today.

GLYN PARRY