CHAPTER 19

1. Agriculture 
1. end of seventeenth century Europe - Agrarian 
1. 80% Westerners drew livelihoods from agriculture 
2. EASTERN EUROPE PERCENTAGE HIGHER 
2. Famine Foods
1.  exhausted soil/drought/bad conditions/withering young stalks = catastrophic famines 
2. people ate chestnuts/bark /dandelions/grass to escape starvation 
1. unbalanced and inadequate food = weak/susceptible to illness 
2. Open Field System:
1. greatest accomplishment of medieval agriculture
2. system developed by PEASANTS. no I'm not lying. P E A S A N T S
• System divided the land to be cultivated BY THE PEASANTS of village into large LARGE FIELDS --> cut up into NARROW STRIPS 
• Peasants farmed each large field as COMMUNITY (LOSER SQUAD!)
• the fields were open (Cough open field system)
3. PROBLEM WITH OPEN FIELD SYSTEM:
1. Exhaustion of Soil
1. they would need to save one track of land (FALLOW) and not farm on it in order to preserve soil but there needed to be a way to not waste soil 
2. In addition to rotating the crops - villages maintained open meadows for pasture
2. State/Landlords continued to heavily tax peasants/stripped peasants of earnings 
4. Agricultural Revolution Was it Really a Revolution ???? yes. 
1. Technological Advancements
• If peasants could replace fallow w/ crops --> increase land under cultivation 
• secret to eliminating the fallow = alternating grain w/ certain nitrogen-storing crops 
• new and sophisticated patterns of crop rotation to suit diff kinds of soil
2. Cause/Effects:
1. cause: ENCLOSURE SYSTEM - advocates of improvement argued that land needed to be enclosed and to consolidate holdings into compact, fenced in fields in order to farm more effectively
2. effect: Selective breeding of livestock = super fat ox/horse = more meat 
1. with new farming = more ideal feed for animals/ LESS STARVATION 
5. Cost of Enclosure:
1. large landowners controlled Parliament - passed Enclosure Acts which authorized fencing of open fields and the division of COMON LANDS in proportion to one's property in the open fields 
1. AKA PEASANTS WHO HAD SMALL HOLDINGS = NOW HAVE ZIP 
2. tenant farmers = key to mastering new farming method
1. financed by Landowners - they fenced fields, built drains, improved soil w/ fertilizer 
2. gave rise of market-oriented estate agriculture - PRODUCE TO SELL/TRADE
3. CAUSED the emergence fo LANDLESS RURAL PROLETARIAT

SIDENOTE: WHAT IS A PROLETARIAT:

• Middle-sized farmers ruled on landless laborers for workforce
• worked long hors, and lost independence and self respect/common rights 
• completely dependent on CASH WAGES 
• Proletarianization = "This transformation of large numbers of small peasant farmers into landless rural wage earners.." Page 636 
• no longer owned any small holdings of land 
• completely reliant on their wages
• needed to produce products for tenant farmer boss or would not get paid / sometimes did not get paid