Despite these criticisms, it is still argued that an English agricultural revolution happened in the century or so after 1750. One obvious reason behind the argument is the fact that an expanding population from this time on was largely fed by home production.
In 1750 English population stood at about 5.7 million. It had probably reached this level before, in the Roman period, then around 1300, and again in 1650. But at each of these periods the population ceased to grow, essentially because agriculture could not respond to the pressure of feeding extra people. Contrary to expectation, however, population grew to unprecedented levels after 1750, reaching 16.6 million in 1850, and agricultural output expanded with it.
One reason output grew was through new farming systems involving the rotation of turnips and clover, although these were part of the general intensification of agricultural production, with more food being produced from the same area of land. Intensity was also increased by land reclamation, especially the draining of the fenlands of eastern England, from the 17th century onwards, when a low-intensity agricultural system based on fishing and fowling was replaced by a high-intensity system based on arable crops.
Other examples include the clearing of woodland and the reclamation of upland pastures. This extent of this activity is impossible to quantify, but may have affected some 30 per cent of the agricultural area of England, from the mid-17th to the mid-19th centuries.
source-BBC
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