Quelle a été exactement la contribution de l'aristocratie britannique au progrès de l'agriculture entre 1688 et 1789 ?

Résumé En

What exactly did Britain 's Aristocracy Contribute to Agricultural Progress from 1688 to 1789? Historians seem to be in broad agreement that, in their capacity as owners and managers of a very considerable and probably increasing share of their country's cultivable land, Britain 's aristocracy made a far greater contribution to agricultural progress over the 18th century than the aristocracies of continental Europe. This bibliographical survey of recent research in British agrarian history suggests that agricultural growth from 1688 to 1789 had only limited connexions with the steps taken by the larger aristocratie landowners to enclose their estates, to consolidate land into larger farms, to diffuse better techniques of cultivation—by shortening leases and inserting covenants of an improving kind into the contracts their stewards made with farmers for the use of land. Furthermore, the proportions of their rents reinvested in agriculture were on the available evidence pretty paltry. Basically what the aristocracy did, with style, was to make agriculture fashionable and to preside over the work foresight and innovations of Britain 's farmers and smaller gentry.