AGRICULTURE, HISTORY OF: CROP-FARMING CHANGES IN ...

Crop-farming changes in western Europe: 16001800 The Norfolk four-course system Of the many changes that took place during this period in agricultural history, few were more important than the Norfolk four-course system, characterized by the disappearance of the fallow year and by a new emphasis on fodder crops. The movement toward change was further intensified by the invention of new farm machines, improvements in farm implements, and scientific interest and new biological theories relating to farm and animal life. In the Norfolk four-course system, wheat was grown in the first year, followed by turnips in the second, then barley, with clover and ryegrass undersown, in the third. The clover and ryegrass were grazed or cut for feed in the fourth year. The turnips were either employed for feeding cattle in open yards during the winter (some covered yards were built) or for feeding sheep confined in folds set up on the ground. This new system was cumulative in effect, for the fodder crops eaten by the livestock produced large supplies of previously scarce animal manure, and that was richer in nature because the animals were better fed. When the sheep grazed the fields, their urine and droppings fertilized the soil, so that heavier cereal yields were obtained in following years. Established in Norfolk County, England, and in several other counties before the end of the 17th century, the Norfolk four-course system became fairly general on the newly enclosed farms by 1800, remaining almost standard practice on most British farms for the best part of the following century. The system was used in the Lothians and some other parts of Scotland by about 1800 and, during the first three quarters of the 19th century, was adopted in much of continental Europe. Enclosure In order to adopt the Norfolk four-course system, it was first necessary to alter the thousand-year-old layout of the arable fields. It was virtually impossible for an individual farmer to grow fodder crops on his strips of land in open fields, for at certain seasons (after harvest, for example) these fields were opened to grazing by the livestock of the whole community. The improving farmer, who grew clover and ryegrass or other legumes or a root crop, would simply have provided additional feed for his neighbours' as well as his own animals. Such an arrangement was possible, of course, if all the farmers cooperated, a rather unlikely but not absolutely unknown state of affairs. On enclosed land, however, a farmer could cultivate these crops and benefit from his own efforts. Consequently there was a rapid acceleration of the enclosure movement in England, sometimes by local agreement, by Chancery decree (late 17th century), and by private acts of Parliament in growing numbers (18th century). Some 6,000,000 acres of English fields were enclosed between 1700 and 1845. On the Continent, the change, where it was made, took place slightly later. Some farms are still worked in strips, though communal regulation has vanished.