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Essay on Thoughts on the First Industrial Revolution

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Thoughts on the First Industrial Revolution

The Era known as the Industrial Revolution was a period in which fundamental changes occurred agriculture, textiles and metal manufacture, transportation, economic policies and the social structure in England. This period is appropriately or inappropriately classified as a "revolution", for this period completely destroyed the old ways of doing things; yet these changes did not occur in an abrupt change as the word "revolution" implies. The transformation that occurred during the period of (1760-1850) occurred very slowly with small gradual changes. 1760 the year generally accepted as the "eve" of the
Industrial Revolution was not the "eve" at all. In reality, this "eve" people …show more content…

The yield of food crops increased as well, mainly due to the enclosure movement taking hold in English villages.
Enclosure is the process of enclosing pieces of land by the use of stone walls, tall shrubs ect. This process helped to increase production because now farmers were able to introduce new technologies to farming, that before they were unable to do. Before enclosure there were large farms where villagers worked together to farm. With the coming of enclosure, farmers were allowed to rent a piece of land and work that land by themselves. Enclosure gave incentive to try new ways of farming because the more they produced on their piece of land, the more grain they could sell at the market, and in turn the more profit they could make. For example, a widely common practice in agriculture at the time was to allow the land to lie fallow after it had been exhausted of minerals through cultivation. Soon it was discovered that the growing of clover and other types of legumes would help restore the fertility of the land. The improved use of manure also helped replenish land that had been exhausted of minerals. Many of these innovations had been known for some time but had never been widely used before. The improvements came into universal use due to the pressure from a rising population. The improvements in agriculture, led to a greater supply of grain during the winter months to sustain

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