British Environment and Landscape in the Nineteenth Century
08-13-2025
International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)
No.4, 2024
British Environment and Landscape in the Nineteenth Century
(Abstract)
Henry French
For over a century, British historians have debated the “most important period in the development of agriculture and rural areas.” To determine which era witnessed the most intense and concentrated changes, that is, to confirm the timespan of the “Agricultural Revolution,” historians have assessed elements of agricultural and rural development such as agricultural productivity, cultivation methods, livestock breeding, and scientific technology. The majority of historians insist that the period of most intensive agricultural transformation lasted from the mid-18th century to the 1870s. They argue that this period saw the most extensive reorganization of arable land in British history, the largest expansion of arable land, and the fastest development of livestock improvement, agricultural machinery, and artificial (chemical) fertilizers. Most also observed that after 1870, the pace of institutional change and technological revolution slowed down, the pressure from the international competition led to a sharp decline in agricultural profits, and agricultural investment also slumped.