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.
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