Agricultural Productivity

Relevant Period: 1700-1850 (though important to consider prior to that to see whether changes part of a continuing trend or mark a radical shift). The questons to consider
  1. What happened to agricultural output
  2. What is the importance of changes in cropping patterns
  3. What happened to crop yields
  4. What happened to labour productivity

What happened to Agricultural Output

It went up. Main acceleration seems to have occurred from late 18th / early 19th century onwards.

Crop Yields

  1. Want to know yields (given usually in bushels per acre). Main crops we are in interested in are the cereals: wheat, barley, and oats.
  2. Know medieval yields from Manorial demesne accounts and yields for 1801 from House of Lords survey. Together -} grain yields x2 between these two dates. We want to date this change (before 1700, 1700-1750 or 1750 on).
  3. Method: Yield data is extracted from probate inventories. Since this only gives prices need to convert this to yield. (Skating over various intricacies of the debate) we arrive at Overton's revised formula (based on Allen) [overton_1990]:

    yield = (valuation + (1-tithe) carting cost + reaping cost) / ((1-tithe) * price)
    (Note: tithe taken after reaping but before carting).

    Debate centres on: (see [leigh-shaw_2004:6]
    1. Were valuations based on cost of production (COPV) or anticipated sale price (ASPV) (Need to exclude COPV but how do you do this - Allen does it by assuming v low price implies COPV).
    2. Inclusion of tithes, carting + reaping costs (where do you source data from - Allen uses 19th C.)
    3. Region used to source data from
  4. Resulting Data: summarized in [shaw-taylor_2004] - see plots in particular. General trends across regions seem to be:
    1. Slow rate of increase 1590-1700
    2. Faster rate of increase late 18th c. onwards (NOT huge though)
    3. For 1700-1750: either continuation of previous trend or mild acceleration
  5. Old Comment: more date needed (see Overton comment on number of samples for Allen estimation [overton_1990:934]

Bibliography

  1. allen_1994, 'The Industrial Revolution' in Floud and McCloskey Vol 1 pp. 96-122.
  2. overton_1990, 'Re-estimating Crop Yields from Probate Inventories: A Comment' JEH 1990 pp. 931-935.
  3. shaw-taylor_2004, 'The Debate over Grain Yields', Handout 3.