How the humble turnip changed history
The turnip may be the butt of jokes in countries where it is grown, many suggesting that it is only eaten by peasants or alluding to the eff ects it can have on the digestive system, but in France it is held in higher regard and is a key ingredient of navarin of lamb, a classic dish of French cuisine. The turnip has also played a signifi - cant role in history as a part of a new system of farming fi rst developed in the fourteenth century in the Low Countries that would lead to enormous social changes across Europe and pave the way for the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century.
By the fourteenth century, the mercantile cities of the Low Countries, including Bruges and Antwerp in modern-day Belgium, were expanding as a consequence of the wealth generated through the wool trade and their commercial links with the northern cities of the Hanseatic League. As well as a growth in population, people from other parts of Europe were coming to the region, providing its farmers with both an opportunity and a problem. Their markets were expanding, but the amount of land suitable for agriculture was limited, preventing them from taking full advantage, while the sale of such foodstuffs as salted herring imported from the Baltic region plugged the gap.
The solution to this problem was to introduce a type of crop rotation that allowed farmers to double the productivity of their land, an innovation for which they have rarely received recognition but one that would form the basis of agriculture for more than 500 years and remain important in many farming systems today. At the heart of this new way of farming was the turnip, not specifi cally grown as a food crop even if it provided a cheap source of sustenance during the winter months, but as fodder for animals and, in particular, for sheep.
Up until then, arable farming had required long periods of fallow in which a third of the land was left unproductive at any one time to allow it to recover after crops had been grown. As well as restoring the fertility of the soil, the fallow period also interrupted the life cycles of the various pests and diseases of arable crops that would otherwise build up over time and could dramatically reduce the quantity of grain harvested.
The advance developed by farmers in the Low Countries was to integrate livestock and arable farming, breaking up the cultivation of cereal crops by growing fodder crops, which are subject to a diff erent range of pests and diseases, and including a grass and clover ley into the rotation for livestock to graze. The benefits of this grazing phase were threefold; as well as providing pasture and winter fodder for livestock, the grass and clover ley further reduced the build-up of pests and diseases as well as actively improving the fertility of the soil. This is a consequence of the cycling of manure from cattle and sheep, both directly while they graze and through the spreading of the muck and straw that has accumulated in the sheds they are kept in over winter, and because growing the leguminous clover results in an increasing amount of nitrogen in the soil. The success of farming in Flanders and in the neighbouring regions of Holland contributed to the increasing prosperity of the Low Countries, which by the sixteenth century had become one of the leading trading nations in the world. Over the course of the century, Antwerp developed into one of the largest and wealthiest cities in Europe, while the Dutch could afford to begin the hugely expensive process of large-scale land reclamation that would transform the country.
The farming innovations developed in Flanders did not result in an immediate fl ood of imitators in other parts of Europe. It was not taken up in the arable regions in the east of England until the seventeenth century and then only sporadically. One of the reasons for this was that much of the arable land was farmed in an open fi eld system, in which local people held commoners’ rights to cultivate strips of land and to graze animals during the fallow periods. A change to a system based on a continuous rotation without the fallow did not begin to occur until the enclosure of these open fields began, a legal process in which the ownership of the land was formalised, which usually meant that local people lost their rights and the title of the land was obtained by the aristocracy and other large landowners.
The enclosure of the countryside and introduction of farming methods such as crop rotation, when taken together with the development of new machinery and the improvements made in the breeding of livestock, are what constitute the British Agricultural Revolution, which used to be described as if it was entirely the work of a few enlightened men. One of these was Charles Townshend (1674– 1738), later the 2nd Viscount Townshend, a politician and diplomat who owned a large estate in Norfolk and is often credited with introducing the four-course, or Norfolk, rotation into Britain. Townshend had been a diplomat in the Dutch Republic from 1709 to 1711 and had seen how productive the farming system developed in the Low Countries could be, so he had introduced a version of it onto his estate.
In Flanders, farmers were using a rotation involving up to seven phases, but in Britain this was simplifi ed to four, beginning with winter wheat, sown in the fall and then harvested in the following summer. Immediately after the wheat harvest, turnips were then put in, a fast-growing crop that could tolerate the relatively cold conditions of the fall to produce a fodder crop for the winter. Next spring, barley was planted and, once that was harvested, the final phase of the rotation was to sow a mixture of grass and clover seed that could then be used for grazing and to make hay until the ground was ploughed up to begin the rotation again.
The extent to which Townshend was responsible for introducing this system to Britain is open to question because records exist of farmers growing turnips in rotation with cereal crops decades before he did. Nevertheless, whatever role he played in the beginning, he was certainly a great advocate of the use of improved farming methods, a fact noted by the poet Alexander Pope, who wrote that all he ever talked about was turnips, earning himself the nickname of Turnip Townshend. But, as dull a conversationalist as he may have been, farming productivity more than doubled as a result of the widespread adoption of the four-course rotation, or farming systems similar to it, at a time when the British population was rapidly expanding.
These days the turnip is not as widely grown as it used to be. Other crops have taken its place, while its reputation as being the foodstuff of people who could not aff ord to eat anything else has limited its appeal. It is hard to imagine the turnip making a comeback, but the part it played in enabling the adoption of more productive agricultural systems and the social changes that followed means that the most maligned of vegetables can legitimately be said to have changed the course of history.
Fifty Foods That Changed The Course Of History, by Bill Price, is published by Apple Press, priced £12.99.
By the fourteenth century, the mercantile cities of the Low Countries, including Bruges and Antwerp in modern-day Belgium, were expanding as a consequence of the wealth generated through the wool trade and their commercial links with the northern cities of the Hanseatic League. As well as a growth in population, people from other parts of Europe were coming to the region, providing its farmers with both an opportunity and a problem. Their markets were expanding, but the amount of land suitable for agriculture was limited, preventing them from taking full advantage, while the sale of such foodstuffs as salted herring imported from the Baltic region plugged the gap.
The solution to this problem was to introduce a type of crop rotation that allowed farmers to double the productivity of their land, an innovation for which they have rarely received recognition but one that would form the basis of agriculture for more than 500 years and remain important in many farming systems today. At the heart of this new way of farming was the turnip, not specifi cally grown as a food crop even if it provided a cheap source of sustenance during the winter months, but as fodder for animals and, in particular, for sheep.
Up until then, arable farming had required long periods of fallow in which a third of the land was left unproductive at any one time to allow it to recover after crops had been grown. As well as restoring the fertility of the soil, the fallow period also interrupted the life cycles of the various pests and diseases of arable crops that would otherwise build up over time and could dramatically reduce the quantity of grain harvested.
The advance developed by farmers in the Low Countries was to integrate livestock and arable farming, breaking up the cultivation of cereal crops by growing fodder crops, which are subject to a diff erent range of pests and diseases, and including a grass and clover ley into the rotation for livestock to graze. The benefits of this grazing phase were threefold; as well as providing pasture and winter fodder for livestock, the grass and clover ley further reduced the build-up of pests and diseases as well as actively improving the fertility of the soil. This is a consequence of the cycling of manure from cattle and sheep, both directly while they graze and through the spreading of the muck and straw that has accumulated in the sheds they are kept in over winter, and because growing the leguminous clover results in an increasing amount of nitrogen in the soil. The success of farming in Flanders and in the neighbouring regions of Holland contributed to the increasing prosperity of the Low Countries, which by the sixteenth century had become one of the leading trading nations in the world. Over the course of the century, Antwerp developed into one of the largest and wealthiest cities in Europe, while the Dutch could afford to begin the hugely expensive process of large-scale land reclamation that would transform the country.
The farming innovations developed in Flanders did not result in an immediate fl ood of imitators in other parts of Europe. It was not taken up in the arable regions in the east of England until the seventeenth century and then only sporadically. One of the reasons for this was that much of the arable land was farmed in an open fi eld system, in which local people held commoners’ rights to cultivate strips of land and to graze animals during the fallow periods. A change to a system based on a continuous rotation without the fallow did not begin to occur until the enclosure of these open fields began, a legal process in which the ownership of the land was formalised, which usually meant that local people lost their rights and the title of the land was obtained by the aristocracy and other large landowners.
The enclosure of the countryside and introduction of farming methods such as crop rotation, when taken together with the development of new machinery and the improvements made in the breeding of livestock, are what constitute the British Agricultural Revolution, which used to be described as if it was entirely the work of a few enlightened men. One of these was Charles Townshend (1674– 1738), later the 2nd Viscount Townshend, a politician and diplomat who owned a large estate in Norfolk and is often credited with introducing the four-course, or Norfolk, rotation into Britain. Townshend had been a diplomat in the Dutch Republic from 1709 to 1711 and had seen how productive the farming system developed in the Low Countries could be, so he had introduced a version of it onto his estate.
In Flanders, farmers were using a rotation involving up to seven phases, but in Britain this was simplifi ed to four, beginning with winter wheat, sown in the fall and then harvested in the following summer. Immediately after the wheat harvest, turnips were then put in, a fast-growing crop that could tolerate the relatively cold conditions of the fall to produce a fodder crop for the winter. Next spring, barley was planted and, once that was harvested, the final phase of the rotation was to sow a mixture of grass and clover seed that could then be used for grazing and to make hay until the ground was ploughed up to begin the rotation again.
The extent to which Townshend was responsible for introducing this system to Britain is open to question because records exist of farmers growing turnips in rotation with cereal crops decades before he did. Nevertheless, whatever role he played in the beginning, he was certainly a great advocate of the use of improved farming methods, a fact noted by the poet Alexander Pope, who wrote that all he ever talked about was turnips, earning himself the nickname of Turnip Townshend. But, as dull a conversationalist as he may have been, farming productivity more than doubled as a result of the widespread adoption of the four-course rotation, or farming systems similar to it, at a time when the British population was rapidly expanding.
These days the turnip is not as widely grown as it used to be. Other crops have taken its place, while its reputation as being the foodstuff of people who could not aff ord to eat anything else has limited its appeal. It is hard to imagine the turnip making a comeback, but the part it played in enabling the adoption of more productive agricultural systems and the social changes that followed means that the most maligned of vegetables can legitimately be said to have changed the course of history.
Fifty Foods That Changed The Course Of History, by Bill Price, is published by Apple Press, priced £12.99.