Agriculture & the Industrial Revolution

"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short"

animal / human labor replaced with mechanized sources of power

Physics, chemistry, and biology became tools to dissect, examine, and then reconstruct agricultural systems to make them better than any that had previously existed on earth

Inhabitants of the ever-expanding cities became increasingly dependent on the transport,

preservation, and storage of food

Four-field rotation

Fencing of large tracts of land to produce more efficient units of production

Intensive breeding for desirable traits could produce improved cattle, horses, and sheep

Science gave plant breeders a clear understanding of how traits were controlled by genes on chromosomes, and how they

could be altered by selective breeding

Gregor Mendel

Inventions transferred much of farm labor to machines

Cotton gin by Eli Whitney (1793)

Harvesting and threshing functions integrated into one machine: the combine

Fertilizers indispensable in maintaining yields

Labor released to city/factory

Commercial revolution

Consequences more lands brought under

cultivation

producing more food in greater quantities more cheaply

cheaper at the market

more & cheaper food means longer life expectancies esp. children

distributed over wider geographic/demographic areas

fewer people needed on farm

Labor migration to city & factories