Economy and Agriculture Before the Industrial Revolution

Flashcards covering the pre-Industrial economy, traditional farming systems, and the early innovations of the Agricultural Revolution.

Manual labour

The method required for growing grain or raising sheep for wool before the Industrial Revolution.

Open-field system

An agricultural system where land was divided into long narrow strips so that each household received a strip to grow their crops.

Common land

The type of land on which most farms were established and leased by local peasant farmers in a district.

Subsistence level

The point reached when agricultural production never increases much above basic needs, keeping the population poor.

Agricultural surplus

A dramatic increase in production resulting from inventions, new farming methods, and the enclosure system in the early $1700s$.

Jethro Tull

An English agriculturalist who invented the seed drill.

Seed drill

An invention that allowed seeds to be easily planted deep into the earth instead of on top.

The end of the $17th$ century

The time period by which serfdom in England had disappeared.