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On the Road Again with Arthur Young: English, Irish, and French Agriculture during the Industrial Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Robert C. Allen  and
Cormac Ó Gráda
Robert C. Allen
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T lY2, Canada.
Cormac Ó Gráda
Affiliation:
Department of Political Economy, University College, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland and Visiting Professor of Economics, Northwestern University.
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Abstract

In their day Arthur Young's tours of England, Ireland, and France represented a revolutionary approach to agricultural research. Here we avail of one part of the wealth of statistical data collected by Young—that on grain yields—to provide a comparative perspective on agricultural technique and progress in these countries around 1770 to 1850. We show that, ironically, Young's carefully assembled data do not always support some of his best-remembered generalizations.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , March 1988 , pp. 93 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1988

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References

The authors would like to thank the following people for helpful comments and discussions: Bruce Campbell, Nick Crafts, François Crouzet, Louis Cullen, Lance Davis, David Dickson, George Grantham, Alan Green, Knick Harley, Dan Heath, Joanne Innes, Eric Jones, Liam Kennedy, Frank Lewis, John McManus, Joel Mokyr, Patrick O'Brien, Angela Redish, Bill Schworm, Peter Solar, Michael Turner, and Herman van der Wee. Earlier versions of this article were presented to seminars at the University of British Columbia; the University of Chicago; and Queen's University, Canada; and to the Conference on International Productivity Comparisons, 1750–1939, Bellagio; the Irish Economic and Social History Conference, Galway; and the International Economic History Congress, Berne. We are grateful to all the participants at these sessions for their discussion. We would like to thank Nancy South for research assistance and Frank Flynn for assistance with programming and data analysis. We are grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for financial support.

1 Young, Arthur, A Six Months' Tour Through the North of England [henceforth Northern Tour] (2nd edn., London, 1771), vol. 1, p. iii;Google ScholarYoung, Arthur, Six Weeks Tour Through the Southern Counties of England and Wales (London, 1768) [henceforth Six Weeks Tour].Google Scholar

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6 Young, , Eastern Tour, vol. 1, p. xi.Google Scholar

7 Ibid., vol. 4, p. 367.

8 Meanwhile, see E. Mingay, Gordon, ed., Arthur Young and His Times (London, 1975), pp. 3–4.Google Scholar

9 Young, , Northern Tour, vol. 3, p. 378.Google Scholar

10 Young also collected considerable information on land values, and it is conceivable that they might shed light on total factor productivity. However, Young, , Travels … [in] France, vol. 2, pp. 120–23, doubted that the numbers measured the economic rent of land.Google Scholar

11 Griliches, Zvi, “Agriculture: Productivity and Technology,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1968), vol. 1, p. 242Google Scholar, maintained that in the twentieth century yields have depended on factors like seed variety, fertilization, and soil moisture. Mechanization and the intensity of cultivation have been unimportant in raising yields. Chorley, G.P.H., “The Agricultural Revolution in Northern Europe, 1750–1880: Nitrogen, Legumes, and Crop Productivity,” Economic History Review, 2nd series, 34 (02 1981), pp. 71–93Google Scholar, explained the growth of yields in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe in terms of cropping changes that raised soil nitrogen. N. Parker, William and L. Klein, Judith, “Productivity Growth in Grain Production in the United States, 1840–1860 and 1900–1910,” in Output, Employment and Productivity in the U.S. after 1800. Studies in Income and Wealth, vol. 30 (Princeton, 1966), pp. 523–46Google Scholar, explained the growth in nineteenth-century American yields in terms of chemical inventions and (in contrast to Griliches) new mechanical equipment.

12 For instance,Bennett, M. K., “British Wheat Yield Per Acre for Seven Centuries”, Economic Journal (Supplement, 1937), pp. 12–29;Google ScholarBourke, P.M.A., “The Average Yield of Food Crops in Ireland on the Eve of the Great Famine,” Department of Agriculture Journal, 66 (1969), pp. 26–39;Google ScholarM. S. Campbell, Bruce, “Agricultural Progress in Medieval England: Some Evidence from Eastern Norfolk,” Economic History Review, 2nd series, 36 (02 1983), pp. 26–46;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Chorley, “The Agricultural Revolution”; Clout, Hugh, Agriculture in France on the Eve of the Railway Age (London, 1980);Google ScholarFussell, G. E., “Population and Wheat Production in the Eighteenth Century,” The History Teachers' Miscellany, 7 (1929), pp. 65–68, 84–88, 108–11, 120–27;Google ScholarHolderness, B. A., “Productivity Trends in English Agriculture, 1600–1850: Observations and Preliminary Results” (presented to International Economic History Conference, Edinburgh, 1978);Google ScholarMorineau, Michel, “Y-a-t-il eu une révolution agricole en France au XVIIIe siècle?” Revue historique, 239 (04–06 1968), pp. 299–326;Google ScholarMorineau, , Les faux-semblants d'un démarrage économique: agriculture et démographie en France au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1970);Google ScholarMorineau, , “Révolution agricole, révolution alimentaire, révolution demographique,” Annales de Démographie Historique, (1974), p. 335–71;Google ScholarNewell, William, “ The Agricultural Revolution in Nineteenth-Century France,” this Journal, 33 (12 1973), pp. 697–731;Google ScholarOverton, Mark, “Estimating Crop Yields from Probate Inventories: An Example from East Anglia, 1585–1735,” this Journal, 39 (06 1979), pp. 363–78;Google ScholarSlicher van Bath, B. H., Yield Ratios, 810–1820, A.A.G. Bijdragen, No. 10 (1963);Google ScholarTitow, J. Z., Winchester Yields: A Study in Medieval Agricultural Productivity (Cambridge, 1972);Google ScholarTurner, Michael, “Agricultural Productivity in England in the Eighteenth Century: Evidence from Crop Yields,” Economic History Review, 2nd series, 35 (11 1982), pp. 489–510;CrossRefGoogle ScholarYelling, J. A., Common Field and Enclosure in England, 1450–1850 (Hamden, 1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Young, Arthur, General View of the Agriculture of Oxfordshire (London, 1813), pp. 35–36.Google Scholar

14 In the modern literature McCloskey, Donald, “The Enclosure of Open Fields: Preface to a Study of its Impact on the Efficiency of English Agriculture in the Eighteenth Century,” this Journal, 32 (03 1972), pp. 15–35,Google Scholar has advocated the use of rents to measure efficiency gains at enclosure. C. Allen, Robert, “The Efficiency and Distributional Consequences of Eighteenth Century Enclosures,” Economic Journal, 92 (12 1982), pp. 937–53,CrossRefGoogle Scholar analyzes the farm reports Young collected in his English tours and finds that rents rose at enclosure because income was transferred from farmers to landlords, not because productivity went up. See also Yelling, , Common Field, pp. 210–13.Google Scholar

15 Young, Arthur, General Report on Enclosures (London, 1808), pp. 37–38,Google Scholar as quoted by Yelling, , Common Field, p. 210.Google Scholar

16 Allen describes the general character of these data in “Efficiency and Distributional Consequences.” While that paper concentrated on analyzing the data relating to farms, this article analyzes a broader sample of villages. C. Allen, Robert and ó Gráda, Cormac, “On the Road Again with Arthur Young: English, Irish and French Agriculture During the Industrial Revolution,” University of British Columbia, Department of Economics Discussion Paper No. 86–38 and University College, Department of Economics, Centre for Economic Research Working Paper No. 45, Appendix Table 1, reports the average yields county by county.Google Scholar

17 Throughout, national yield averages have been computed as unweighted arithmetic means of the county data. The absence of county acreage data left no other option.

18 The contemporary is quoted in G. Gazley, John, The Life of Arthur Young (Philadelphia, 1973), p. 196;Google Scholar Kerridge is quoted in Mingay, , Arthur Young, p. 3.Google Scholar

19 Marshall, William, Review of the Reports of the Board of Agriculture (London, 1808–1817), vol. 3, pp. 65–66. See also vol. 3, pp. 358, 491–92, and vol. 4, pp. 456–60.Google Scholar

20 Young, , Northern Tour, vol. 1, pp. xii–xiii.Google Scholar

21 Young, , Northern Tour, vol. 1, p. iv.Google Scholar

22 Young, , Eastern Tour, vol. 1, pp. 3, 82, 165.Google Scholar

23 Caird, James, English Agriculture in 1850–1851, Mingay, G. E., ed. (London, 1968), p. 474.Google Scholar

24 McCulloch, J. R., A Descriptive and Statistical Account of the British Empire (London, 1837), vol. 1, p. 482;Google ScholarFussell, , “Population and Wheat Production,” p. 109 fn. 35.Google Scholar

25 Turner, , “Agricultural Productivity,” pp. 502–3, 494.Google Scholar

26 For example, Bennett, “British Wheat Yields.”

27 L. Jones, Eric, Agriculture and the Industrical Revolution (Oxford, 1974), pp. 184–90.Google Scholar

28 Thus, for instance, Titow's, , Winchester Yields, pp. 121–35, z,Google Scholar summary of the yields of 40 manors of the Bishop of Winchester between 1209 and 1349 showed wheat yielding 10.7 bushels per acre, barley 16.8 bushels, and oats 11.7 bushels. Titow's figures have been divided by 0.9 to compensate for the tithe. (Titow, , Winchester Yields, p. 8.)Google ScholarFarmer, D. L., “Grain Yields on the Winchester Manors in the Later Middle Ages,” Economic History Review, 2nd series, 30 (11 1977) pp. 555–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar reports yield-seed ratios for the same manors into the fifteenth century, and those ratios are scarcely different from the ones Titow reports. Brandon, P. F., “Cereal Yields on the Sussex Estates of Battle Abbey during the Later Middle Ages,” Economic History Review, 2nd series, 25 (08 1972), pp. 403–20, reports similar numbers for some Sussex manors on p. 417. See Slicher van Bath, Yield-Rauos, summarizing yield-seed ratios for all English records in print when he wrote. Again those ratios are fully consistent with our argument. The only discordant findings are the high yields in some East Norfolk manors recently discussed by Campbell, “Agricultural Progress.”CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Fussell, , “Population and Wheat Production,” p. 111.Google Scholar

30 Turner, “Agricultural Productivity”; Overton, Mark, “Agricultural Productivity in Eighteenth- Century England: Some Further Speculations,” Economic History Review, 2nd series, 37 (05 1984), pp. 244–51;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and C. Allen, Robert, “Enclosure, Capitalist Agriculture, and the Growth in Corn Yields in Early Modern England” (University of British Columbia Department of Economics, Discussion Paper 86–39).Google Scholar

31 Turner, “Agricultural Productivity.”

32 Young, , “Tour in Ireland,” (Dublin, 1780 edn.), pt 2, p. 75.Google Scholar

33 Compare O'Brien, George, The Economic History of Ireland from the Union to the Famine (London, 1921), pp. 27–128,Google Scholar and Green, E.R.R., “Agriculture,” in Edwards, R. Dudley and Williams, T. Desmond, eds., The Great Famine: Studies in Irish History (Dublin, 1956), pp. 89–128.Google Scholar

34 ó Gráda, Cormac, Ireland Before and After the Famine: Explorations in Economic History (Manchester, 1988), chap. 2.Google Scholar

35 Thomas, Brinley, “Food Supply in the United Kingdom during the Industrial Revolution,” in Mokyr, Joel, ed., The Economics of the industrial Revolution (Totowa, 1985), pp. 137–50.Google Scholar

36 Cormac ó Gráda, Ireland, chap. 2. See also Solar, P. M., “Agricultural Productivity and Economic Development in Ireland and Scotland in the Early Nineteenth Century,” in Devine, Tom and Dickson, David, eds., Ireland and Scotland (Edinburgh, 1983).Google Scholar

37 Crafts, N.F.R., “Income Elasticities of Demand and the Release of Labour from Agriculture during the Industrial Revolution: A Further Appraisal,” in Mokyr, , ed., The Economics of the Industrial Revolution, p. 160.Google Scholar

38 For an earlier assessment of Irish grain yields before 1845, see Bourke, , “Average Yields,” pp. 26–39. Bourke, however, largely eschews comparisons across countries and over time.Google Scholar

39 Wakefield, E., An Account of Ireland, Statistical and Political (London, 1812) [henceforth Ireland].Google Scholar

40 Another source is the parish yield data in the Ordnance Survey memoirs for the 1830s. Available for Ulster counties only, these data are often ambiguous in terms of the measurement units used. Omitting unclear cases, however, yields a 34-parish average of 37.0 bushels for oats and a 31-parish average of 26.6 bushels for wheat. We are grateful to Liam Kennedy of Queen's University, Belfast, for sharing his O.S.M. data.

41 Mingay, , Arthur Young, p. 6.Google Scholar

42 Fraser, Robert, Statistical Survey of the County of Wexford (Dublin, 1807), p. 56.Google Scholar

43 A condensed single-volume version of the first and second tours had been produced by John Wynn Baker for the Dublin Society in 1771. This abridgement of the Six Weeks, and Six Months Tour of Arthur Young, Esq. was aimed at “the common farmer of Ireland,” and 3,000 copies were printed.

44 Gazley, , Arthur Young, pp. 96–100.Google Scholar

45 Cullen, L. M., The Emergence of Modern Ireland, 1600–1900 (London, 1981), pp. 172–92.Google Scholar

46 Young, Arthur, A Tour in Ireland, selected and edited by Maxwell, C. (Cambridge, 1925), p. 32.Google Scholar

47 Also Young, Arthur, The Autobiography of Arthur Young, Beatham-Edwards, M., ed. (London, 1898), vol. 1, p. 85.Google Scholar

48 It is worth noting that French writers have generally been impressed with Young's Irish inquiry. When Millon, C., “Editor's Preface,” Young, Arthur, Voyage en Irlande (Paris, 1800), produced a work “qui fasse connaltre d'une manière satisfaisante l'Irlande,” it was a translation of Part II of Young's Tour in Ireland. Young's reputation was a “sure guarantee” of success; “nothing escaped his inquiries.”Google ScholarSée, H., “Introduction,” Young, A., Voyages en France 1787, 1788, 1789 (Paris, 1931; 1976 edn.), vol. 1, p. 27, fn., suggests, rightly in our view, that Young's knowledge of Irish agriculture was “plus précise et plus exacte.”Google Scholar

49 Bourke, , “Average Yields,” p. 27.Google Scholar

50 Bourke's, Even “Average Yield,” p.27,Google Scholar more conservative assessment—reflecting a belief that the reduction in acreage during the Famine boosted yields—still implies progress between Young's time and 1845. On rotations see Wakefield, , Ireland, pp. 368–426.Google Scholar His data are tabulated in Mokyr, Joel, “Irish History with the Potato,” Irish Economic and Social History, 8 (1981), p. 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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54 Ernle, Lord, English Farming, Past and Present (4th edn., London, 1927), p. 206.Google Scholar

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57 Young, , Travels …. [in] France, vol. 2, pp. 45, 56, 76.Google Scholar

58 Ibid., pp. 43–46.

59 See Weber, E., Peasants into Frenchmen (London, 1977), chap. 6.Google Scholar

60 Young, , Travels … [in] France, vol. 2, p. 55.Google Scholar

61 Ibid.

62 Ibid., pp. 55–56.

63 Ibid., p. 92.

64 Ibid., p. 93.

65 The loam district includes Picardy, Flanders, Artois, the Ile de France, and parts of Normandy, Alsace, and Auvergne. The heath district includes Brittany, Anjou, and Gascony. The mountain district includes Roussillon, Languedoc, Auvergne, Dauphiné, and Provence. The stony district includes Lorraine, Alsace, Franche Comté, and Burgundy. The chalk district includes Sologne, Saintonge, Angoumois, Poitou, Touraine, Champagne. Young also distinguished a gravel district and a district of “various barns,” but he collected little information about them. Clout, Hugh, Themes in the Historical Geography of France (London, 1977), p. 549, has produced a useful map of Young's soil districts with his route superimposed.Google Scholar

66 The seed rates were read off Clout's, , Agriculture, p. 112,Google Scholar map for the departments where Young recorded yields. Mainly on his third trip, Young reported seed rates for some places in France (Travels … [in] France, vol. 2, p. 118). The average level of seeding he recorded is consistent with the 1837 inquiry, but seed rates do not correspond very closely place by place.Google Scholar

67 Young, , Travels … [in] France, vol. 2, p. 89.Google Scholar

68 Ibid., p. 95.

69 Ibid., p. 88. Specklin, R., “Les campagnes í leur apogée 1852–1880,” in Agulhon, M. et al., Histoire de la France rurale (Paris, 1976), vol. 3, p. 265, noted that Young “n'a vu le pays que le long des routes traversées, et entre elles, principalement dans l'Ouest, il y avait de grands espaces qu'il n'a connus que par oui-dite ou pas de tout”.Google Scholar

70 France, , Ministère de l'Agriculture, Récoltes des céréales et pommes de terre, 1815–1876 (Paris, 1913).Google Scholar

71 Grantham, George, “The Diffusion of the New Husbandry in Northern France,” this Journal, 38 (06 1978), pp. 311–37.Google Scholar

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73 See O'Brien, P. K. and Keydar, C., Economic Growth in Britain and France, 1780–1914 (London, 1978), pp. 125–26.Google Scholar

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76 Heywood, C., “The Role of the Peasantry in French Industrialization, 1815–80,” Economic History Review, 2nd series, 34 (08. 1981), pp. 359–76,Google Scholar and Goldsmith, J. L., “The Agrarian History of Preindustrial France. Where Do We Go from Here?” Journal of European Economic History, 13 (Spring 1984), pp. 175–99.Google Scholar

77 Young, , Travels … [in] France, vol. 2, pp. 123–26.Google Scholar

78 More recent assessments rely on labor productivity, and by that standard French agriculture was only two-thirds as productive as English early in the nineteenth century. See, for instance, O'Brien and Keyder, Economic Growth; Bairoch, P., “Niveau de développement économique de 1810 í 1910,” Annales: Economies, Societés, Civilisations, 20 (11–12 1965), pp. 1091–1117;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWrigley, E. A., “Urban Growth and Agricultural Change: England and the Continent in the Early Modem Period,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 15 (Spring 1985), pp. 683–728; Robert C.Allen, “The Growth in Labor Productivity in Early Modem English Agriculture,” Explorations in Economic History, forthcoming.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

79 Young, , Travels … [in] France, vol. 2, 119.Google Scholar

80 Ibid., p. 118, 123.