Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- 1 Introduction: Knowledge and its Networks in Rural Europe: From the Early Eighteenth to the Late Twentieth Century
- 2 Agricultural Literature in Scandinavia and the Anglo-Saxon Countries as an Indicator of a Deep-Rooted Economic Enlightenment, c.1700–1800
- 3 Peasant Eyes: A Critique of the Agricultural Enlightenment
- 4 Fighting the Angoumois Grain Moth: Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau and his Network of Entomological Observers
- 5 ‘Promoting and Accelerating the Progress of Agriculture’: A Case Study of Agricultural Societies in the Doncaster District, South Yorkshire, England
- 6 ‘Proper Values’ in Agriculture: The Role of Agricultural Associations in Knowledge Dissemination in Hungary, 1830–1880
- 7 ‘The Eye of the Master’. Livestock Improvement and Knowledge Networks in Belgium, 1990–1940
- 8 Bridging Rural Culture and Expert Culture: The Agrarian Press in Galicia, c.1900–c.1950
- 9 Farmers Facing a Body of Expertise: the Activities and Methods of the Departmental Services for Agriculture in Oise (France), 1945–1955
- 10 Technical Change and Knowledge Networks in England, 1945–1980s
- 11 Communicating an Innovation: Building Dutch Progeny Testing Stations for Pigs
- Index
2 - Agricultural Literature in Scandinavia and the Anglo-Saxon Countries as an Indicator of a Deep-Rooted Economic Enlightenment, c.1700–1800
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- 1 Introduction: Knowledge and its Networks in Rural Europe: From the Early Eighteenth to the Late Twentieth Century
- 2 Agricultural Literature in Scandinavia and the Anglo-Saxon Countries as an Indicator of a Deep-Rooted Economic Enlightenment, c.1700–1800
- 3 Peasant Eyes: A Critique of the Agricultural Enlightenment
- 4 Fighting the Angoumois Grain Moth: Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau and his Network of Entomological Observers
- 5 ‘Promoting and Accelerating the Progress of Agriculture’: A Case Study of Agricultural Societies in the Doncaster District, South Yorkshire, England
- 6 ‘Proper Values’ in Agriculture: The Role of Agricultural Associations in Knowledge Dissemination in Hungary, 1830–1880
- 7 ‘The Eye of the Master’. Livestock Improvement and Knowledge Networks in Belgium, 1990–1940
- 8 Bridging Rural Culture and Expert Culture: The Agrarian Press in Galicia, c.1900–c.1950
- 9 Farmers Facing a Body of Expertise: the Activities and Methods of the Departmental Services for Agriculture in Oise (France), 1945–1955
- 10 Technical Change and Knowledge Networks in England, 1945–1980s
- 11 Communicating an Innovation: Building Dutch Progeny Testing Stations for Pigs
- Index
Summary
The Economic Enlightenment in the countryside saw a change in the knowledge systems at play and the establishment of a culture of innovation aimed at optimizing agricultural production. To examine this process of change, I will use agricultural literature published in Scandinavia and in the Anglo-Saxon countries during the eighteenth century as an indicator. The hypothesis the chapter wishes to advance is that literature about agriculture was a consequence of changes in agricultural practices, rather than affecting such changes. To put it differently: the authors often addressed issues being discussed more generally in society in formal and informal knowledge networks.
Agricultural literature is one of the oldest and most important non-fictional genres. Columella's work on agriculture from the first century of the Common Era runs to more than 200,000 words. From the sixteenth century there was an expansion of this literature in the West, with a rapid increase from the eighteenth century onwards. Though these works were not widely disseminated, and the direct influence seems to have been rather limited, the proliferation of texts offering a more practical, hands-on approach was a burgeoning part of an even faster growing general intellectual debate within society.
If this agricultural literature reflected the discourses in society at large, they can also be used to study new attitudes, such as the greater appreciation of novelty and innovations. This was a deep, underlying current that was transforming the countryside, an increasingly critical discussion, also among farmers, about how to manage farming, which was combined with growing communication between different social strata where the literate upper class was not only delivering information, but perhaps even more obtaining information from below.
I am not proposing that tradition and stagnation were totally prevalent before then, and I do not argue that this literature provides us with accurate information about what was on the agenda at village meetings or general discussions in the churchyard. However, when the literature does begin to become more widespread, it is in fact one of the few indicators we have about broader societal discussion on these issues. Agricultural literature allows us to reach further back into history than most other sources, as we try to understand the contemporary discussions on farming from any given time.
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- Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2022