1 Shiel, Robert, ‘Improving soil productivity in the pre-fertiliser era’, in Campbell, Bruce M. S. and Overton, Mark eds., Land, labour and livestock: historical studies in European agricultural productivity (Manchester, 1991), 14–15, 51–77 Google Scholar; Clark, Colin and Haswell, Margaret, The economics of subsistence agriculture (London, 1967), 36–7Google Scholar; Tisdale, Samuel, Nelson, Werner and Beaton, James, Soil fertility and fertilizers (New York, 1985), 59–92 Google Scholar.

2 Radkau, Joachim, Nature and power: a global history of the environment (Cambridge, 2008), 208 Google Scholar (citation); Brassley, Paul, ‘Britain, 1750–2000’, in Thoen, Erik and Soens, Tim eds., Struggling with the environment: land use and productivity, Rural Economy and Society in North-Western Europe, 500–2000 (Turnhout, 2015)Google Scholar; Kim, Kyung-Keun, Le Vexin français de 1700 à 1850: 1^re partie: la production agricole, Mémoires de la société historique et archéologique de Pontoise, 81 (1998), 46 Google Scholar; Woodward, Donald, ‘“An essay on manures”: changing attitudes to fertilization in England, 1500–1800’, in Chartres, John and Hey, David eds., English rural society, 1500–1800: essays in honour of Joan Thirsk (Cambridge, 1990), 251–78, here 251–2Google Scholar.

3 Overton, Mark, Agricultural Revolution in England: the transformation of the agrarian economy 1500–1800 (Cambridge, 1996), 306–13Google Scholar; Shiel, ‘Improving soil productivity’, 75–7; Chorley, G. P. H., ‘The Agricultural Revolution in Northern Europe, 1750–1880: nitrogen, legumes and crop productivity’, Economic History Review 34 (1981), 71–93 Google Scholar; for a recent contribution to the debates of agricultural growth, see Thoen and Soens eds., Struggling with the environment: land use and productivity.

4 Dejongh, Guy and Thoen, Erik, ‘Arable productivity in Flanders and the former territory of Belgium in a long-term perspective (from the Middle Ages to the end of the Ancien Régime)’, in van Bavel, Bas J. P. and Thoen, Erik eds., Land productivity and agro-systems in the North Sea area, Middle Ages–twentieth century: Elements for comparison, CORN 2 (Turnhout, 1999), 30–64, 56–8Google Scholar; Goossens, Martine, The economic development of Belgian agriculture: a regional perspective, 1812–1846, Studies in Belgian Economic History, 2 (Brussels, 1992), 287–92Google Scholar; Dejongh, Guy, ‘New estimates of land productivity in Belgium, 1750–1850’, Agricultural History Review 47, 1 (1999), 7–28, 27–8Google Scholar.

5 Douglas, Mary, Purity and danger: an analysis of the concepts of pollution and taboo (London, 1988), 35 Google Scholar; Winiwarter, Verena, ‘History of waste’, in Bisson, Katy and Proops, John eds., Waste in ecological economics (Northampton, 2002), 40–5Google Scholar; Chloé Deligne, ‘De langetermijngeschiedenis van het afvalbeheer en de watervervuiling in Brussel’, Jaarboek voor ecologische geschiedenis (2003), 1–16, 2–3.

6 Winiwarter, ‘History of waste’, 41–2; Radkau, Nature and power, 205–12; Tarr, Joel, ‘From city to farm: urban wastes and the American farmer’, Agricultural History 49, 4 (1975), 598–612 Google Scholar; Barles, Sabine, ‘A metabolic approach to the city: nineteenth and twentieth-century Paris’, in Schott, Dieter, Luckin, Bill and Massard-Guilbaud, Geneviève eds., Resources of the city: contributions to an environmental history of modern Europe (Aldershot, 2005), 28–47 Google Scholar; Brunt, Liam, ‘“Where there's muck, there's brass”: the market for manure in the industrial revolution’, Economic History Review 60, 2 (2007), 333–72, here 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Winiwarter, ‘History of waste’, 38–54, 40–1; Jones, Richard, ‘Why manure matters’, in Jones, Richard ed., Manure matters: historical and ethnographic perspectives (Farnham, 2012), 1–11, here 7–8Google Scholar (referring to Roman agronomists like Cato, Varro and Columella).

8 Erik Thoen, ‘Landbouwekonomie en bevolking in Vlaanderen gedurende de late Middeleeuwen en het begin van de Moderne Tijden Testregio: de kasselrijen van Oudenaarde en Aalst (eind 13de-eerste helft 16de eeuw)’ (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, Ghent University, 1988), part 2, 792; Campbell, Bruce M. S., ‘Agricultural progress in medieval England: some evidence from Eastern Norfolk’, Economic History Review 36, 1 (1983), 22–46, here 34Google Scholar.

9 Bruno Debaenst, ‘Historische stront op Vlaamse grond: een inleidende studie in de historische faecologie’ (unpublished lic. thesis, Ghent University, 1999), ch. 3; Oram, Richard, ‘Waste management and peri-urban agriculture in the early modern Scottish burgh’, Agricultural History Review 59, 1 (2011), 1–17, here 11Google Scholar.

10 Winiwarter, ‘History of waste’, 42; Pomeranz, Kenneth, The great divergence: China, Europe, and the making of the modern world economy (Princeton/Oxford, 2000), 32–3, 64, 98–9, 141, 216–27, 303–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pomeranz, Kenneth, ‘Beyond the east-west binary: resituating development paths in the eighteenth-century world’, Journal of Asian Studies 61, 2 (2002), 539–90Google Scholar; Brenner, Robert and Isett, Christopher, ‘England's divergence from China's Yangzi delta: property relations, microeconomics, and patterns of development’, Journal of Asian Studies 61, 2 (2002), 609–62Google Scholar; Li, Bozhong, The development of agriculture and industry in Jiagnan, 1644–1850: trends and prospects (Hangzhou, 1986)Google Scholar; Xue, Yong, ‘“Treasure nightsoil as if it were gold”: economic and ecological links between urban and rural areas in late imperial Jiagnan’, Late Imperial China 26, 1 (2005), 45–71 Google Scholar.

11 Young, Arthur, Voyages en France pendant les années 1787, 88, 89 et 90, 3 (Paris, 1794), 1238 Google Scholar; De Gomicourt, Derival, Le voyageur dans les Pays-Bas Autrichiens (Amsterdam, 1782–1783), 394 Google Scholar; Radcliffe, Thomas, A report on the agriculture of Eastern and Western Flanders (Dublin, 1819), 234 Google Scholar; Schwerz, J. N., Anleitung zur Kenntnis der Belgischen Landwirtschaft (Halle, 1807–1811), 117 Google Scholar; Shaw, James, Essai sur les Pays-Bas Autrichiens: Traduit de l'Anglois (London, 1788), 83 Google Scholar.

12 For an overview, see Pieter De Graef and Tim Soens, ‘Boer en burger ecologisch verenigd? Een micro-perspectief op het gebruik van stedelijk afval als meststof in de vroegmoderne Vlaamse landbouw’, Jaarboek voor ecologische geschiedenis (2012–2013), 9–40.

13 Ibid., 19–22; Lindemans, Paul, Geschiedenis van de landbouw in België (Antwerp, 1952), 62 Google Scholar; Debaenst, ‘Historische stront’, ch. 3.

14 Thoen, ‘Landbouwekonomie’; Thoen, Erik, ‘A “commercial survival economy” in evolution: the Flemish countryside and the transition to capitalism (Middle Ages–nineteenth century)’, in Hoppenbrouwers, Peter and van Zanden, Jan Luiten eds., Peasants into farmers? The transformation of rural economy and society in the Low Countries (Middle Ages–nineteenth century) in light of the Brenner debate, CORN 4 (Turnhout, 2001), 102–57Google Scholar; Vandenbroeke, Christiaan, Agriculture et alimentation (Ghent, 1975)Google Scholar; Lambrecht, Thijs, Een grote hoeve in een klein dorp: relaties van arbeid en pacht op het Vlaamse platteland tijdens de 18de eeuw (Ghent, 2002)Google Scholar; Vermoesen, Reinoud, Markttoegang en ‘commerciële’ netwerken van rurale huishoudens: de regio Aalst, 1650–1800 (Ghent, 2011)Google Scholar.

15 Overton, Agricultural Revolution, 109; Woodward, ‘“An essay on manures”’, 267.

16 Jones, ‘Why manure matters’; Hoffmann, Richard and Winiwarter, Verena, ‘Making land and water meet: cycling of nutrients between fields and ponds in pre-modern Europe’, Agricultural History 84, 3 (2010), 352–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Winiwarter, Verena, ‘The art of making the earth fruitful: medieval and early modern improvements of soil fertility’, in Scott, Bruce ed., Ecologies and economies in medieval and early modern Europe: studies in environmental history for Richard C. Hoffmann (Leiden, 2010), 93–114 Google Scholar.

17 Lindemans, Geschiedenis; Bieleman, Jan, ‘Van traditionele naar technologische vruchtbaarheid en verder … Het mestprobleem in de Nederlandse landbouw in historisch perspectief’, Tijdschrift voor ecologische geschiedenis, 1 (1996), 2–8 Google Scholar; Barles, ‘A metabolic approach’; Debaenst, Bruno, ‘L'engrais flamand, la richesse de la Flandre’, in Demars-Sion, Véronique, Pfister, Christian and Martinage, Renée eds., Droit et environnement (Lille, 2009), 23–38 Google Scholar.

18 Goossens, The economic development, 291; a viewpoint adopted by Dejongh and Thoen, ‘Arable productivity’, 56.

19 van Bath, Bernhard Slicher, De agrarische geschiedenis van West-Europa, 500–1850 (Utrecht, 1960), 279–89Google Scholar.

20 See also the contrast in recent literature between the suggestion of a social approach made in Thoen and Soens, Struggling with the environment and the focus on long term production data at aggregate levels in Broadberry, Stephen, Campbell, Bruce M. S., Klein, Alexander, Overton, Mark and van Leeuwen, Bas, British economic growth, 1270–1870 (Cambridge, 2015)Google Scholar.

21 State Archives Bruges (SAB), Oud Gemeentearchief Lichtervelde, nos. 292, 294, 295 (further taxation registers); on fragmentation of holdings, see Vermoesen, Markttoegang, 68–114; Thoen, ‘A “commercial survival economy”’, 116–19.

22 Lambrecht, Een grote hoeve, 107–13; this strategy by large farmers was observed for many proto-industrial regions; see Schlumbohm, Jürgen, ‘Agrarische Besitzklassen und gewerbliche Produktionsverhältnisse: Grossbauern, Kleinbesitzer und Landlose als Leinenproduzenten im Umland von Osnabrück und Bielefeld während des frühen 19. Jahrhundert’, in Mentalitäten und Lebensverhältnisse: Beispiele aus der Sozialgeschichte der Neuzeit: Festschrift für Rudolph Vierhaus (Göttingen, 1982), 315–34Google Scholar.

23 Irmgard Callens, ‘Leven en werken in de kasselrij Kortrijk: sociaal-economische en demografische studie van de 18^de eeuw’ (unpublished lic. thesis, Ghent University, 1985), 242–6, 287–306; Willy Vanderpijpen, ‘De landbouw en de landbouwpolitiek in het Leie- en het Scheldedepartement (1794–1814)’ (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 1983), 295–320.

24 Callens, ‘Leven en werken’, 201–2; Vanderpijpen, De landbouw, 27.

25 Livestock census: City Archive Alost, Land of Alost, no. 1111; standards of manure production for farm animals: 12 wagons of manure a horse per annum, 8.5 wagons of cow dung per animal a year and 0.4 wagons in the case of one sheep per year; see also appraisers’ manuals: State Archives Courtrai (SAC), Aanwinsten, no. 3263; City Library Courtrai, Handschriften de Béthune, no 72. To estimate the manure production, the cultivated arable land in the 1846 census (that is, similar to the ancien régime situation) was used: census processed by Sven Vrielinck (Ghent University) within the project HISSTAT/LOKSTAT.

26 Although it is not certain that their manure was recycled in the village economy, as animal husbandry on the river meadows was dominated by urban merchant-butchers, using the river meadows for fattening cattle from spring to autumn.

27 Erik Thoen and Tim Soens, ‘Low Countries 1000–1750’, in Thoen and Soens eds., Struggling with the environment: land use and productivity; for Furnes, see Vandewalle, Paul, De geschiedenis van de landbouw in de Kasselrij Veurne, 1550–1645 (Brussels, 1986)Google Scholar.

28 SAC, Aanwinsten, nos. 50–9; SAB, Brugse Vrije Sanders, nos. 138–40 (together further referenced as ‘Database’). There is a total of 447 appraisals.

29 Margaret Spufford, ‘The limitations of the probate inventory’, in Chartres and Hey eds., English rural society, 1500–1800, 139–74; for Flanders, see Vermoesen, Markttoegang, 19–32.

30 See also De Graef and Soens, ‘Boer en burger’, 24–5.

31 Smil, Enriching, 26.

32 Lindemans, Geschiedenis, 60–1.

33 Brunt, ‘“Where there's muck, there's brass”’, 333–72.

34 Robert Shiel, ‘Science and practice: the ecology of manure in historical retrospect’, in Jones ed., Manure matters, 13–23 here 16–17; City library of Courtrai, Handschriften de Bethune, no. 184: ‘drije cuypen coeybaut is maer weerdigh een cuype menschenbauwt’ (that is, three barrels of liquid manure from cows is the equivalent of only one barrel of human excrements).

35 De Graef and Soens, ‘Boer en burger’, 14; see also Myriam Daru, ‘De kwestie der faecaliën: de afvoer van menselijke uitwerpselen als stadshygiënisch probleem in Nederlandse steden tussen het einde van de achttiende eeuw en het laatste kwart van de negentiende eeuw’ (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 1985), 22.

36 Shiel, ‘Science’, 18; Clark and Haswell, Subsistence agriculture, 37.

37 Database; Shiel, ‘Science’, 18; Allen, Robert, ‘The nitrogen hypothesis and the English agricultural revolution: a biological analysis’, Journal of Economic History 68, 1 (2008), 182–204, here 202CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Russell, E. W., Soil conditions and plant growth (London, 1973), 658–69Google Scholar.

38 Van Acker, Lucien, ‘Mergel, kalk en kalkovens in West-Vlaanderen’, in Album Joseph Delbaere (Rumbeke, 1968), 163–77Google Scholar.

39 De Graef and Soens, ‘Boer en burger’, 12–22.

40 Estimation of fertilising value by subtracting costs of soil cultivation (ploughing, harrowing), sowing seed and labour of sowing from the total production cost of each plot, so that – as became clear in the field section of the appraisals – the appraising of fertilisation was singled out. For price information, see Isabelle Devos, ‘Prijzen van granen en andere landbouwprodukten in de Kasselrij Kortrijk (16^de–19^de eeuw)’ (unpublished lic. thesis, Ghent University, 1990). Significant difference between the average estimated manuring value per ha of bought manures and on-farm manures according to a sample t-test: equal variances not assumed: p-value < 0.001.

41 A statistically significant difference proved by a Kruskal-Wallis test: p-value < 0.001.

42 The estimated amount of cropland per farm size group (that is, 71 per cent of the land of each farm, deduced from the tax records) has been multiplied by the proportion of the cultivated land fertilised with each kind of off-farm fertiliser as well as with the mean number of wagons loaded with these fertilisers per hectare (both derived from the appraisals) to calculate the total number of wagons at the aggregate level of the seigniory.

43 Chapter 8 of my PhD dissertation is dedicated to transport improvements: Pieter De Graef, ‘Urbs in rure? Urban manure and fertiliser improvement in eighteenth-century Flemish farming’ (unpublished D. Phil. thesis, Antwerp University, 2016).

44 Vermoesen, Markttoegang, 42–3.

45 For an in-depth discussion of urban manure supply and waste management, see Pieter De Graef, ‘Food from country to city, waste from city to country: an environmental symbiosis? Fertiliser improvement in eighteenth-century Flanders’, Journal for the History of Environment and Society 2 (forthcoming 2017).

46 On mixed farming as a typical feature of European agriculture, see Grigg, David, ‘The agricultural regions of the World: review and reflections’, Economic Geography 45, 2 (1969), 95–132 Google Scholar; on income strategies of rural households in the North Sea area, see Vanhaute, Eric, Devos, Isabelle and Lambrecht, Thijs eds., Making a living: family, income and labour, Rural Economy and Society in North-Western Europe, 500–2000 (Turnhout, 2011)Google Scholar.

47 Horrell, Sara, ‘Home demand and British industrialization’, Journal of Economic History 56, 3 (1996), 561–604 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Krausmann, Fridolin, ‘Milk, manure, and muscle power: livestock and the transformation of preindustrial agriculture in Central Europe’, Human Ecology 32, 6 (2004), 735–72Google Scholar.

48 See an adoption of the method by Vandewalle, Geschiedenis, 213. In our sample region, it mostly concerns the possession of cows, next to some pigs and – on the larger farms – horses; see also Callens, Leven en werken, 249–72; Vanderpijpen, De landbouw, 409–83.

49 The amount of livestock on cottage farms is underestimated in these figures because of a number of reasons: (1) lots of cottagers did not have the appraisers register livestock, but did fertilise their cropland with livestock manure; (2) the lordly right of ‘mortmain’ (that is, a kind of taxation stipulating that the most valuable movable (the family's cow) had to be handed over to the local lordship or its value reimbursed) made some cottagers sell their cow, when lacking sufficient means to pay off this right. Hence, livestock was missing in the appraisals; (3) when cottage families did not have the means to buy a cow, they could take a cow on lease from a fellow farmer. Consequently, it was not part of their appraised movables. Compare HISSTAT/POPPKAD with Moriceau, Jean-Marc, Histoire et géographie de l’élevage français, du Moyen Âge à la Révolution (Paris, 2005), ch. 11Google Scholar; for our research area, a piece of litigation proves both the possibility of ‘mortmain’ selling and cow leasing, in which cows from the cattle-breeding region of coastal Flanders were leased out to smallholders in inland Flanders: State Archive Ghent, Raad van Vlaanderen, no. 17531.

50 Vermoesen, Markttoegang, 86; Chorley, ‘The Agricultural Revolution’, 71–93; Overton, Agricultural Revolution; Shiel, ‘Improving soil productivity’, 64–7; Dejongh and Thoen, ‘Arable productivity’, 51; Russell, Soil conditions, 357–77; Smil, Enriching the earth, 13–15.

51 Vermoesen, Markttoegang, 86; Shiel, ‘Improving soil productivity’, 56–70.

52 Clover sowers: 0–1 ha: 21 out of 54 (38.9 per cent); 1–2.5 ha: 123 out of 152 (80.9 per cent); 2.5–5 ha: 102 out of 113 (90.3 per cent); 5–10 ha: 61 out of 65 (93.8 per cent); >10 ha: 49 out of 52 (94.2 per cent).

53 Regression equation: $ln\displaystyle{{\pi \left( x \right)} \over {1 - \pi \left( x \right)}} =- 0.379 - 0.020X_1 - 0.371X_2- 0.240X_3 + 2.486X_4 + 3.035X_5 + 3.512X_6 + 4.173X_7 + 3.290X_8 + 22.428X_9 $ with X ₁ the on-farm fertilisation degree and X ₂ to X ₉ categorical variables for the time from 1730s to 1800s (1720s as reference level). N_{fertilising with on-farm manure only}: 261; N_{buying extra off-farm manures}: 178.

The Likelihood Ratio Test (LRT-test) with p-values <0.001 indicates the significance of the entire regression model including both the on-farm fertilisation degree and the time category, whereas the Wald-tests are significant for both variables, p-value of 0.001 for the on-farm fertilisation degree and <0.000 for the time category.

54 For the 1730s and 60 per cent on-farm fertilisation degree: $\pi \left( x \right) = \displaystyle{{e^{\left( { - 0.379 - 0.020*60 - 0.371*1} \right)}} \over {1 + e^{\left( { - 0.379 - 0.020*60 - 0.371*1} \right)}}} = 0.125$ or 12.5%; for the 1750s and 60 per cent on-farm fertilisation degree: $\pi \left( x \right) = \displaystyle{{e^{\left( { - 0.379 - 0.020*60 + 2.486*1} \right)}} \over {1 + e^{\left( { - 0.379 - 0.020*60 + 2.486*1} \right)}}} = 0.712$ or 71.2 per cent.

55 Wald-test with p-value of 0.091 for the farm size variable.

56 Callens, Leven en werken, 242–5; Vanderpijpen, De landbouw, 303–4.

57 Flax growers: 0–1 ha: 20 out of 64 (31.3 per cent); 1–2.5 ha: 90 out of 158 (56.9 per cent); 2.5–5 ha: 80 out of 112 (71.4 per cent); 5–10 ha: 50 out of 67 (74.6 per cent); >10 ha: 40 out of 51 (78.4 per cent); very comparable and perhaps even slightly more important in this region as compared with the peasant region around Alost; see Vermoesen, Markttoegang, 90–2; see also Lamarcq, ‘Een kwantitatieve benadering’.

58 A Mann-Whitney U test points to significant differences: p-value of 0.038; average 1720s–1750s: 8.2 per cent, average 1760s–1800s: 9.8 per cent. Similar for the peasant area around Alost: Peter D'haeseleer, ‘Proto-industrialisering van de vlasnijverheid in dertien gemeenten ten westen van Aalst (18e-eerste helft 19e eeuw): een bijdrage’ (unpublished lic. Thesis, Leuven University, 1990), 98.

59 Dejongh, ‘New estimates’, 25–6.

60 A statistically significant difference proved by a Kruskal-Wallis test: p-value < 0.001; for the 1–2.5 ha, 2.5–5 ha and 5–10 ha farm size groups, a statistically stronger analysis of variances (Anova) can be performed. The Anova test indicates significant differences between the groups. PostHoc tests for equal variances (Bonferroni, LSD and Scheffe) point to significant differences between the small and middle-small peasants on the one hand and middle-large cultivators on the other: p-values < 0.001. On flax as nutrient demanding crop, see Vanderpijpen, De landbouw, 303–4; Lindemans, Geschiedenis, 230–1; D'haeseleer, ‘Proto-industrialisering’, 85–6.

61 Lindemans, Geschiedenis, 433–4.

62 Regression equation: $ln\displaystyle{{\pi \left( x \right)} \over {1 - \pi \left( x \right)}} = - 0.824 - 0.022X_{1} - 0.390X_{2} - 0.299X_{3} + 2.515X_{4} + 3.050X_{5} + 3.552X_{6} + 3.779X_{7} + 2.950X_{8} + 21.318X_{9} + 0.039X_{10} + 0.083X_{11}$ with X ₁ the on-farm fertilisation degree, X ₂ to X ₉ categorical variables for the time from 1730s to 1800s (with the 1720s as reference level) and X ₁₀ and X ₁₁ the share of respectively clover and flax on the fields to the total cultivated area per household. N_{fertilising with on-farm manure only}: 261; N_{buying extra off-farm manures}: 178. The LRT-test with p-values < 0.001 indicates the significance of the entire regression model, as well as the addition of the extra variables, whereas the Wald-tests are significant for all separate variables: p-value of 0.001 for the on-farm fertilisation degree, p-value < 0.001 for the time category, p-value of 0.023 for the share of clover and p-value of 0.006 for the share of flax.

63 For a) $\pi \left( x \right) = \displaystyle{{e^{\left( { - 0.824 - 0.022*60 + 2.515*1} \right)}} \over {1 + e^{\left( { - 0.824 - 0.022*60 + 2.515*1} \right)}}} = 0.591$ or 59.1 per cent. For b) $\pi \left( x \right) = \displaystyle{{e^{\left( { - 0.824 - 0.022*60 + 2.515*1 + 0.039*10} \right)}} \over {1 + e^{\left( { - 0.824 - 0.022*60 + 2.515*1 + 0.039*10} \right)}}} = 0.682$ or 68.2 per cent. For c) $\pi \left( x \right) = \displaystyle{{e^{\left( { - 0.824 - 0.022*60 + 2.515*1 + 0.083*9} \right)}} \over {1 + e^{\left( { - 0.824 - 0.022*60 + 2.515*1 + 0.083*9} \right)}}} = 0.754$ or 75.4 per cent. For d) $\pi \left( x \right) = \displaystyle{{e^{\left( { - 0.824 - 0.022*60 + 2.515*1 + 0.039*10 + 0.083*9} \right)}} \over {1 + e^{\left( { - 0.824 - 0.022*60 + 2.515*1 + 0.039*10 + 0.083*9} \right)}}} = 0.819$ or 81.9 per cent.

64 No such impact was found for cereals, potatoes and root crops, which were basically dressed with on-farm manures.

65 At the level of the seigniory, lease prices for the collection of tithes (that is, ecclesiastical taxes on cereal crops and thus indicators of cereal output) could be reconstructed while capturing both the impact of uncultivated land and – on the basis of the appraisals – the decrease in the proportion of cereal cultivation. Fertilisation patterns are represented by indices of off-farm fertiliser inputs and clover cultivation of our sample households. Reconverting these data into an index interpretable at village level entails a process of lifting out micro data at the expense of detail but to the advantage of trend watching; see also Database and taxation registers.

66 Thoen, ‘A “commercial survival economy”’, 118–19.

67 Scholliers, Etienne and Vandenbroeke, Chris, ‘Structuren en conjuncturen in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden 1480-1800’, in Blok, Dirk P. et al. eds., Algemene geschiedenis der Nederlanden 5 (Haarlem, 1980), 252–310, 277–8Google Scholar; Vandenbroeke, Chris, ‘Levensstandaard en tewerkstelling in Vlaanderen (17e–18e eeuw)’, Handelingen der maatschappij voor geschiedenis en oudheidkunde te Gent 31 (1977), 151–89Google Scholar.

68 Vanhaute, Eric and Lambrecht, Thijs, ‘Famine, exchange networks and the village community: a comparative analysis of the subsistence crises of the 1740s and the 1840s in Flanders’, Continuity and Change 26, 2 (2011), 155–86Google Scholar.

69 Regression equation: $\ln \displaystyle{{\pi \left( x \right)} \over {1 - \pi \left( x \right)}} = 19.194 - 1.332X_1 + 0.044X_2 - 7.211X_3 $ with X ₁ the price of linen, X ₂the price of flax and X ₃the price of rye; Wald-test of 0.000; LRT-test of 0.000. It has to be remarked here that the standard error of the rye price variable was rather high: 1.440 (compared to 0.012 for the flax price and 0.156 for the linen price).

70 Vanhaute and Lambrecht, ‘Famine’, 163.

71 Coenen, Ann, Carriers of growth? International trade and economic development in the Austrian Netherlands (Leiden, 2014), 126–39Google Scholar; Vandenbroeke, Agriculture et alimentation, 386–7.

72 Coppejans-Desmedt, Hilda, ‘Prijzen te Zottegem (1682–1793)’, in Verlinden, Charles and Scholliers, Etienne eds., Dokumenten voor de geschiedenis van prijzen en lonen in Vlaanderen en Brabant, XIII-XIXde eeuw 2 (Brugge, 1965), 493–500 Google Scholar.

73 Ronsijn, Wouter, Commerce and the countryside: the rural population's involvement in the commodity market in Flanders, 1750–1910 (Ghent, 2014), 97 Google Scholar; for price information on crude flax, see Deprez, Paul, ‘Prijzen te Sint-Niklaas-Waas (18^e eeuw)’, in Verlinden, Charles and Scholliers, Etienne eds., Dokumenten voor de geschiedenis van prijzen en lonen in Vlaanderen en Brabant, XIII-XIXde eeuw (Brugge, 1959), 131–2Google Scholar.

74 Vandenbroeke, Chris, ‘Evolutie van land-en bedrijfspacht in de streek van Kortrijk van de late 16e eeuw tot begin 19e eeuw’, De Leiegouw 27 (1985), 33–54, 44–53 Google Scholar.

75 Regression equation: $\ln \displaystyle{{\pi \left( x \right)} \over {1 - \pi \left( x \right)}} = 14.292 - 0.19X_1 + 0.082X_2 - 1.269X_3 $ with X ₁ the on-farm fertilisation degree, X ₂ the share of flax in the rotation scheme and X ₃ the price of linen (the share of clover also has been outranged in this model); N_{fertilising with on-farm manure only}: 245; N_{buying extra off-farm manures}: 154. The LRT-test with p-values < 0.001 indicates the significance of the entire regression model, as well as the addition of the extra variables, whereas the Wald-tests are significant for all separate variables: p-value of 0.004 for the on-farm fertilisation degree, p-value of 0.011 for the share of flax, and p-value < 0.001 for the price of linen.

76 See Database: more precisely 61.7 per cent of all households recorded looms and 78.3 per cent registered spinning wheels; se also Callens, Leven en werken, 287–306; the same proportions as in the other core region of proto-industry in the Land of Alost; see Vermoesen, Markttoegang, 92–3.

77 Regression equation: $\ln \displaystyle{{\pi \left( x \right)} \over {1 - \pi \left( x \right)}} = - 10.18 - 0.15X_1 + 0.037X_2 + 0.067X_3 + 0.066X_4 + 0.012X_5 $ with X ₁ the on-farm fertilisation degree, X ₂ and X ₃the share of respectively clover and flax to the total cultivated area per household, X ₄ the price of flax, X ₅ the rental price; N_{fertilising with on-farm manure only}: 245; N_{buying extra off-farm manures}: 154. The LRT-test with p-values < 0.001 indicates the significance of the entire regression model, whereas the Wald-test is significant for the flax price (p-value < 0.001), the linen price (p-value < 0.001) as well as for the rental price (p-values of 0.031).

78 See also regression equation in previous note.

79 Vandenbroeke, ‘Evolutie van de land- en bedrijfspacht’, 50–1.

80 Contributions in Hoppenbrouwers and van Zanden eds., Peasants into farmers?.

81 Database and see Lambrecht, Een grote hoeve, 113–45; Vermoesen, Markttoegang, 147–51.

82 In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the minimum farm size for subsistence of a household with five members lowered from 3 to 1 hectare under the influence of the potato crop (Thoen, ‘A “commercial survival economy”’, 111) and the new fertiliser approach (my PhD dissertation, ‘Urbs in rure?’).