Improved farming methods

Enclosures made more money for landlords and tenants. Landlords laid new drains, to make wet land drier, and put up new farm buildings. Then they urged their tenants to try new farming methods. The tenants made bigger profits, and the landlords put up the rents.

On enclosed land, farmers made up their own minds which crops to grow, when to sow the seed, when to harvest the crop, etc. (They did not have to go along with the rest of the village.) This meant that they could try out new crops, such as turnips and clover. And farmers who grew clover found that they did not need to leave the land fallow every third year.

Turnips and clover were winter food for cattle and sheep. Farmers who grew them did not need to kill off most of their animals in the autumn. And after enclosures, farmers kept their own cattle in their own fields - they did not have to mix with the others on the common. So careful farmers could be sure that their animals were kept free from disease.

For some, farming became a science. Robert Bakewell and the Colling brothers bred new kinds of sheep and cattle. They were bigger than other animals, gave more meat, and brought more profit to the farmer.

News of the farming changes was spread in books and papers. Great lords, and King George III himself, laid out "model farms" to show what could be done. But not all landlords and farmers were quick to change. Most farmers did not start growing turnips and clover until after 1800.

Walter Robson: Britain 1750 - 1900; Oxford University Press, 1993, page 5 f.