[Sidenote: "Gentlemen Farmers" and "Husbandry"]
[Sidenote: "Rotation of Crops"]
There were some enterprising and prosperous landowners who used newer
and better methods, and even wrote books about "husbandry," as
agriculture was called. The Dutch, especially, learned to cultivate
their narrow territory carefully, and from them English farmers
learned many secrets of tillage. They grew clover and "artificial
grasses"--such as rye--for their cattle, cultivated turnips for winter
fodder, tilled the soil more thoroughly, used fertilizers more
diligently, and even learned how to shift their crops from field to
field according to a regular plan, so that the soil would not lose its
fertility and would not have to be left idle or "fallow" every third
year.
[Sidenote: Survival of Primitive Methods]
These new methods were all very fine for "gentlemen farmers," but for
the average peasant the old "open-field" system was an effective
barrier to progress. He could not plant new crops on his strips in the
grain fields, for custom forbade it; he could not breed his cows
scientifically, while they ran in with the rest of the village cattle.
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