New Farming Methods: Seed Drills, Turnips and Breeding

Alongside enclosure came new techniques that helped British farms feed far more people with a shrinking share of the workforce. Jethro Tull promoted a horse-drawn seed drill that planted seeds in rows, reducing waste. Charles 'Turnip' Townshend popularized the Norfolk four-course rotation of wheat, turnips, barley and clover, which avoided leaving fields fallow: clover restored nitrogen to the soil, and turnips fed livestock through winter.

Robert Bakewell used selective breeding to produce sheep and cattle that fattened faster for meat. Historians now caution that these famous names were promoters as much as inventors, and that improvements spread slowly over generations through many anonymous farmers. Still, rising farm productivity mattered: it fed growing towns, and it meant that a smaller share of workers was needed on the land, freeing labor for industry.