Ian D. Rotherham and David McCallam
86
some sum of £1000 in recognition of his innovation, and asked him to
survey the general application of his method of underdrainage in other
parts of the country.
45 Drainage, underdrainage, and irrigation too,
were then important advances in land management in eighteenthcentury Western Europe. Generally, they were most effective where
there were large local labour forces. This is understandable not only
because drainage was a labour-intensive process, but also because it
was in heavily populated areas that the demand was greatest for increased agricultural production and hence for more land on which to
provide it. The population increase in Britain and France, especially
after 1740, was at once the cause of wetland reclamation and a means
to effect it.
In France the population rose from around 21 million in 1700
to 28.1 million in 1790.
46 This demographic pressure was reflected in
governmental attitudes: the “intendants” of French regions such as
Brittany, who had been close to the peasantry in the seventeenth century and supported their fight to retain common lands, were by the
middle of the eighteenth century persuaded to sacrifice commons to
enclosure and increased food production.
47 Increased food production
was also the major incentive for fenland drainage in England in the
eighteenth century. Arthur Young, writing in 1772, suggested “breaking up uncultivated lands” and “draining fens” as the chief means not
only of enhancing productivity of these holdings but also of raising
income for those who farmed them.
48 For the logic was straightforward: reclaimed lands could be enclosed and incorporated into the
new crop rotation cycles which avoided leaving fields fallow; they
could specifically be used for cultivating fodder crops which in turn
would feed greater numbers of livestock which would, in their turn,
produce more manure, further reducing the need for fallow and fertilizing yet greater yields on the reclaimed lands. If this was the English
model, it also began to be widely adopted in France in the late eighteenth century. In Normandy, for instance, a better supply of fodder
crops from reclaimed lands, including marshes, encouraged animal
husbandry, especially with regard to cattle; the cattle in turn produced
___________________________
45 Purseglove, Taming the Flood, pp. 58-59.
46 McManners, Death and the Enlightenment, p. 89.
47 Bloch, French Rural History, p. 212.
48 See Arthur Young, Political Essays concerning the present state of the British Empire (London: W. Strahan, T. Cadell, 1772), pp. 117, 130-32.
86
some sum of £1000 in recognition of his innovation, and asked him to
survey the general application of his method of underdrainage in other
parts of the country.
45 Drainage, underdrainage, and irrigation too,
were then important advances in land management in eighteenthcentury Western Europe. Generally, they were most effective where
there were large local labour forces. This is understandable not only
because drainage was a labour-intensive process, but also because it
was in heavily populated areas that the demand was greatest for increased agricultural production and hence for more land on which to
provide it. The population increase in Britain and France, especially
after 1740, was at once the cause of wetland reclamation and a means
to effect it.
In France the population rose from around 21 million in 1700
to 28.1 million in 1790.
46 This demographic pressure was reflected in
governmental attitudes: the “intendants” of French regions such as
Brittany, who had been close to the peasantry in the seventeenth century and supported their fight to retain common lands, were by the
middle of the eighteenth century persuaded to sacrifice commons to
enclosure and increased food production.
47 Increased food production
was also the major incentive for fenland drainage in England in the
eighteenth century. Arthur Young, writing in 1772, suggested “breaking up uncultivated lands” and “draining fens” as the chief means not
only of enhancing productivity of these holdings but also of raising
income for those who farmed them.
48 For the logic was straightforward: reclaimed lands could be enclosed and incorporated into the
new crop rotation cycles which avoided leaving fields fallow; they
could specifically be used for cultivating fodder crops which in turn
would feed greater numbers of livestock which would, in their turn,
produce more manure, further reducing the need for fallow and fertilizing yet greater yields on the reclaimed lands. If this was the English
model, it also began to be widely adopted in France in the late eighteenth century. In Normandy, for instance, a better supply of fodder
crops from reclaimed lands, including marshes, encouraged animal
husbandry, especially with regard to cattle; the cattle in turn produced
___________________________
45 Purseglove, Taming the Flood, pp. 58-59.
46 McManners, Death and the Enlightenment, p. 89.
47 Bloch, French Rural History, p. 212.
48 See Arthur Young, Political Essays concerning the present state of the British Empire (London: W. Strahan, T. Cadell, 1772), pp. 117, 130-32.