This chapter returns to the theme of Chapter One. It re-emphasises the case for an ‘agricultural revolution’, or rather an ‘agrarian revolution’ consisting of two related transformations; first a transformation in output and productivity, and second, a transformation in the institutional framework of farming. The chapter concludes with an exploration of some ideas about the driving forces behind these agrarian changes; first in terms of responses to market prices, and second through the social relations of production embodied in agrarian capitalism. Before that, however, the first part of the chapter returns to the question of regional variety in farming discussed in Chapter Two, following a brief comparison of farming in the mid-nineteenth century with farming in the early sixteenth century.

High farming

The apogee of the conventional ‘agricultural revolution’ in 1850 was ‘high farming’. ‘High’ was used as an adverb meaning excellent, and while many contemporary farmers regarded high farming as excellent, its meaning came to be associated with an intensive system of farming with high inputs and high outputs. The basis of high farming was mixed farming embodying the principles of the Norfolk four-course; but by 1850 the rotation had been extended and production intensified. In many light-soil areas, high farming was intensive mixed farming, with a corn crop taken two years in every four or five, and the remainder of the arable under fodder. By the 1850s, catch crops had been introduced on the short fallows between the major crops, so that fodder crops now included swedes, turnips, rape, vetches, kale, mangolds, rye grass, clover, cabbages, sainfoin and kohl-rabi.