NAME: PER:
CRASH COURSE WORLD HISTORY
Episode #1: The Agricultural Revolution
Length: 11:11
Notes:
- The Agricultural Revolution was the unprecedented increase in agricultural production in
Britain due to increases in labor and land productivity between the mid-17th and late 19th
centuries. However, historians continue to dispute whether the developments leading to the
unprecedented agricultural growth can be seen as “a revolution,” since the growth was a result
of a series of significant changes that took place over a long period of time.
- It brought about experimentation with new crops and new methods of crop rotation. These
new farming techniques gave soil time to replenish nutrients leading to stronger crops and
better agricultural output. Advancements in irrigation and drainage further increased
productivity.
- One of the most important innovations of the Agricultural Revolution was the development of
the Norfolk four-course rotation, which greatly increased crop and livestock yields by improving
soil fertility and reducing fallow. Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of dissimilar
types of crops in the same area in sequential seasons to help restore plant nutrients and mitigate
the build-up of pathogens and pests that often occurs when one plant species is continuously
cropped.
- The four-field rotation system allowed farmers to restore soil fertility and restore some of the
plant nutrients removed with the crops. Turnips first show up in the probate records in England
as early as 1638 but were not widely used until about 1750. Fallow land was about 20% of the
arable area in England in 1700 before turnips and clover were extensively grown. Guano and
nitrates from South America were introduced in the mid-19th century and fallow steadily
declined to reach only about 4% in 1900.
- A two-field crop rotation system common in the Middle Ages and a three-year three field crop
rotation routine employed later, the regular planting of legumes such as peas and beans in the
fields that were previously fallow became central and slowly restored the fertility of some
croplands. In the end, it was the farmers in Flanders in parts of France and current day Belgium
that discovered a still more effective four-field crop rotation system, using turnips and clover, a
legume as forage crops to replace the three-year crop rotation fallow year.
- Fifteen thousand years ago, humans were foragers and hunters. Foraging meant gathering fruits,
nuts, also wild grains and grasses; hunting allowed for a more protein-rich diet. By far the best
hunting was fishing.
- Fossil evidence suggests that they had pretty good life. Their bones and teeth are healthier than
those of agriculturalists. And anthropologists who've studied the remaining forager peoples
have noted that they actually spend a lot fewer hours working than the rest of us, and they
spend more time on art, music, and storytelling.
- Cultivation of crops have risen independently over the course of millennia in a number of places,
from Africa to China to the Americas using crops that naturally grew nearby. Rice in Southeast
Asia, maize in Mexico, potatoes in the Andes, wheat in the Fertile Crescent, yams in West Africa.
People around the world began to abandon their foraging for agriculture. And many
communities made this choice independently,
- The advantage of Agricultures is controllable food supply. They might have droughts or floods,
but if they growing the crops and breeding them to be hardier, they have a better chance of not
starving. If they grow grain, they can create a food surplus, which makes cities possible and also
the specialization of labor. Like, in the days before agriculture, everybody’s job was foraging, and
it took about a thousand calories of work to create a thousand calories of food and it was
impossible to create large population centers.
- Agriculture can be practiced all over the world, although in some cases it takes extensive
manipulation of the environment, like irrigation, controlled flooding, and terracing.
- But there are also the disadvantages of Agricultures. In order to keep feeding people as the
population grows you have to radically change the environment.
- In the mid-18th century, two British agriculturalists, Robert Bakewell and Thomas Coke,
introduced selective breeding as a scientific practice and used inbreeding to stabilize certain
qualities in order to reduce genetic diversity. Bakewell was also the first to breed cattle to be
used primarily for beef.
- Certain practices that contributed to a more productive use of land intensified, such as
converting some pasture land into arable land and recovering fen land and pastures. Other
developments came from Flanders and the Netherlands, the region that became a pioneer in
canal building, soil restoration and maintenance, soil drainage, and land reclamation technology.
Finally, water-meadows were utilized in the late 16th to the 20th centuries and allowed earlier
pasturing of livestock after they were wintered on hay.
- Herders always getting the short end of the stick. Herding is a really good and interesting
alternative to foraging and agriculture. They domesticate some animals and then take them on
the road. The advantages of herding are animals provide meat and milk. They also help out with
shelter because they can provide wool and leather. The downside is they have to move around a
lot because the herd always needs new grass, which makes it hard to build cities.
- One of the main reasons herding only caught on in certain parts of the world is that there aren't
that many animals that lend themselves to domestication. They have sheep, goats, cattle, pigs,
horses, camels, donkeys, reindeer, water buffalo, yaks, all of which have something in common.
They aren't native to the Americas. The only halfway useful herding animal native to the
Americas is the llama.
- Charles Darwin, like most 19th century scientists, believed agriculture was an accident, saying,
"a wild and unusually good variety of native plant might attract the attention of some wise old
savage."
- More than 13,000 years ago humans in southern Greece were domesticating snails. In the
Franchthi Cave, there's a huge pile of snail shells, most of them are larger than current snails,
suggesting that the people who ate them were selectively breeding them to be bigger and more
nutritious.
- Many historians argue that without agriculture they wouldn't have all the bad things that come
with complex civilizations like patriarchy, inequality, war, and unfortunately, famine. And
agriculture has been a big loser. Without it, humans never would have changed the environment
so much, building dams, and clearing forests, and more recently, drilling for oil that we can turn
into fertilizer.
NAME: PER:
CRASH COURSE WORLD HISTORY
Episode #1: The Agricultural Revolution
Length: 11:11
NOTES:
SUMMARY OF THE VIDEO:
Vocab: This section is for words that one might not understand.
1. Foragers:
2. Patriarchy:
3. Famine:
QUIZ QUESTIONS
1. Why is the Norfolk four-course rotation considered as one of the most important innovations
of the Agricultural Revolution?
2. How did the four-field crop rotation help the farmers?
3. Explain how the cultivation of crops affects people and places during the Agricultural
Revolution.
4. What did Bakewell and Coke introduce in the mid-18th century?
5. What are the advantages and disadvantages of herding in society?
6. Explain why there are places where herding is not possible, like America.
7. What is the importance of the Agricultural Revolution?
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. Explain the four-field rotation system.
2. What did the farmers in Flanders discover to replace the three-year crop rotation fallow year?
3. How did agriculturists define human fifteen thousand years ago as foragers and hunters?
4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of agriculture in society?
5. Give certain practices that can contribute to more productive use of land.
6. What happened in the Agricultural revolution?
7. Why did Charles Darwin believe that agriculture is an accident?
Vocab: This section is for words that one might not understand.
1. Foragers: a person or animal that searches widely for food or provisions.
2. Patriarchy: is a social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political
leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property.
3. Famine: is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, inflation, crop failure,
population imbalance, or government policies.
QUIZ QUESTIONS
1. Why is the Norfolk four-course rotation considered as one of the most important innovations of the
Agricultural Revolution?
One of the most important innovations of the Agricultural Revolution was the development of the Norfolk
four-course rotation, which greatly increased crop and livestock yields by improving soil fertility and
reducing fallow. It is a crop rotation that practice of growing a series of dissimilar types of crops in the
same area in sequential seasons to help restore plant nutrients and mitigate the build-up of pathogens and
pests that often occurs when one plant species is continuously cropped.
2. How did the four-field crop rotation help the farmers?
The four-field rotation system allowed farmers to restore soil fertility and restore some of the plant
nutrients removed with the crops.
3. Explain how the cultivation of crops affects people and places during the Agricultural Revolution.
Cultivation of crops have risen independently over the course of millennia in a number of places, from
Africa to China to the Americas using crops that naturally grew nearby. Rice in Southeast Asia, maize in
Mexico, potatoes in the Andes, wheat in the Fertile Crescent, yams in West Africa. People around the world
began to abandon their foraging for agriculture. And many communities made this choice independently,
4. What did Bakewell and Coke introduce in the mid-18 th century?
In the mid-18th century, two British agriculturalists, Robert Bakewell and Thomas Coke, introduced
selective breeding as a scientific practice and used inbreeding to stabilize certain qualities in order to
reduce genetic diversity. Bakewell was also the first to breed cattle to be used primarily for beef.
5. What are the advantages and disadvantages of herding in society?
The advantages of herding in the society are animals provide meat and milk. They also help out with
shelter because they can provide wool and leather but the downside is, they have to move around a lot
because the herd always needs new grass, which makes it hard to build cities.
6. Explain why there are places where herding is not possible, like America?
One of the main reasons herding only possible in certain parts of the world because there aren't that many
animals that lend themselves to domestication. They have sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, horses, camels,
donkeys, reindeer, water buffalo, yaks, all of which have something in common. But they aren't native to
the Americas. The only useful herding animal native to the Americas is the llama.
7. What is the importance of the Agricultural Revolution?
It brought about experimentation with new crops and new methods of crop rotation. These
new farming techniques gave soil time to replenish nutrients leading to stronger crops and
better agricultural output. Advancements in irrigation and drainage further increased productivity.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. Explain the four-field rotation system.
2. What did the farmers in Flanders discover to replace the three-year crop rotation fallow year?
3. How did agriculturists define human fifteen thousand years ago as foragers and hunters?
4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of agriculture in society?
5. Give certain practices that can contribute to more productive use of land.
6. What happened in the Agricultural revolution?
7. Why did Charles Darwin believe that agriculture is an accident?
