History- Innovations of the Industrial Revolution

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Agricultural Revolution The Agricultural Revolution is the name given to the drastic changes in the farming process that occurred in the 1600's onwards. The spread-out, shared farms, common under the "open-field system" of cultivation, turned into more compact, but larger, farms. The many problems associated with open fields; the overgrazing of animals, difficulty in reaching consensus for change, and single herds that had led to a spread of animal diseases and uncontrollable breeding breeding; had all become generally solved (Gernhard). Farmers had discovered a crop rotation system that allowed them to forgo leaving up to half the land unused or fallow between each planting. Animal husbandry was becoming widely used. This was just the beginning of the change, and many important players were able to create other innovations for the farm that would change the ways farms would work: The Seed Drill - Source • Jethro Tull (1674 - 1741) Jethro Tull was a key player in introducing and popularizing root vegetables. His major contributions to the Agricultural Revolution, however, were his two inventions: the seed drill and horse hoe (Gernhard). The seed drill was an innovation that allowed seeds to be easily planted deep into the earth instead of on top where the majority were washed away or otherwise lost. The machine was pulled by horses and consisted of rotating drills or runners that would plant seeds at a set depth (Seed Drill). His other invention, the horse hoe, was another revolutionary device which allowed for much more efficient planting by allowing a horse to pull a plow quickly. • Lord Townshend Townshend was another key player in popularizing root vegetables, even more so than Tull. Called "Turnip" Townshend by others, he was famous for his cultivation of turnips and clover on his estate in Norfolk. He introduced the four-course

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