THE IMPACT OF SCIENCE ON AGRICULTURE

Abstract

IN spite of considerable diversity, agricultural systems in the pre-scientific days usually possessed two features in common: they aimed first and foremost at providing complete subsistence for the community, money crops being a subordinate consideration ; and they included measures for conserving the productiveness of the land, either by the so-called fallowing, or by letting the land revert to the wild state, or by some other device. Although these systems had a low level of productiveness they provided food for indefinitely long periods of time, and in addition possessed certain social advantages. In the system followed in Great Britain, around the Baltic, in Northern India and elsewhere, the land was divided into strips which were shared out among the participants for the purposes of ensuring equitable distribution of good and bad land. The whole complex of peasant life developed some creative art which showed itself in a love of colour, folk music and dancing, embroidery, wood carving, pottery, iron, work and other peasant arts and crafts.