Facts that Matter | Extra Documents & Tests for Class 9 PDF Download

• Agricultural Revolution first took place in England. Over the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the English countryside changed dramatically. Before this time in large parts of England, the countryside was open. It was not partitioned into enclosed lands privately owned by landlords. Peasants cultivated on strips of land around the village they lived in. Beyond these strips of cultivation lay the common land. All villagers had access to the commons. Here, they pastured their cows and grazed their sheep, collected fuelwood for fire and berries and fruits for food.
• This economy of open fields and common lands changed drastically over time. In 16th century, rich farmers divided and enclosed them in order to make available good feed for their sheep. They also built hedges around their holdings to separate their property from that of others. They drove out villagers who had small cottages on the commons, and they prevented the poor from entering the enclosed fields.
• The Enclosure Movement proceeded slowly till the middle of the 18th century. After the mid-18th century, it swept through the countryside, changing the English landscape for ever. More and more lands began to be enclosed.
• The 16th century enclosures promoted sheep farming whereas the enclosures occurred in the late 18th century were for grain production. From the mid-18th century, the English population expanded rapidly. This meant an increased demand for foodgrains to feed the population.
• By the end of the 18th century, France was at war with England. This disrupted trade and the import of foodgrains from Europe. Prices of foodgrains in England rose high, encouraging landowners to enclose lands for grain production.
• Landlords got benefitted by enclosures but the poor became helpless because they depended on the commons for their survival. Now they could no longer collect their firewood from forests or graze their cattle on the commons. Everything belonged to the landlords, everything had a price which the poor could not afford to pay.
• In places, where enclosures happened on an extensive scale, the poor were displaced from the land. They found their customary rights gradually disappearing. They went to cities to find jobs.
• The introduction of threshing machines also created problems for the poor. The Captain Swing riots spread in the countryside to discourage their use.
• Thus, the coming of modern agriculture in England meant many different changes. On one hand, the richer farmers made 6 profits by expanding grain productions. On the other hand, the poor farmers faced hardships due to disappearance of open fields.
• So far the USA is  concerned, modern agriculture developed there by the early twentieth century.
• The story of agrarian expansion is closely connected to the Westward Movement of the White settlers who displaced local tribes by taking over their land. They slashed and burnt forests, pulled out the stumps, cleared the land for cultivation and built log cabins in the forest clearings. Then they cleared larger areas, ploughed them and sowed corn and wheat.
• In the early years, the fertile soil produced good crops. When the soil exhausted in one place, the migrants would move further to explore new land. It was, however, only after the 1860’s that settlers swept into the Great Plains across the river Mississippi. In subsequent decades, this region became a major wheat-producing area of America.
• From the late 19th century, there was a dramatic expansion of wheat, production in the USA. In 1910, about 45 million acres of land in the USA was under wheat. Nine years later, the area had expanded to 74 million acres.
• This dramatic expansion was made possible by new technology such as mechanical reapers, tractors, disc ploughs, etc. The new machines allowed big farmers to rapidly clear large tracts, break up soil, remove the grass and prepare the ground for cultivation. The work could be done quickly and with a minimal number of hands.
• But poor farmers faced hardships. Mechanisation had reduced the need for labour. As a result, many of them looked for jobs elsewhere.
• The expansion of wheat agriculture in the Great Plains created big problems. In the 1930s, terrifying dust-storms began to blow over the southern plains. As the skies darkened, and the dust swept in, people were blinded and choked. Cattle were suffocated to death. Tractors and machines that had ploughed the earth and harvested the wheat in the 1920’s were now clogged with dust, damaged beyond repair.
• The whole region thus became a dust bowl. The American dream of a land of plenty turned into a nightmare. This incident taught the settlers a lesson that they should respect the ecological conditions of each region. They should not uproot all vegetation to fulfil their greed.
• The history of opium production in India was linked up with the story of British trade with China. In the late 18th century, the British East India Company was buying tea and silk from China for sale in England. As tea became a popular English beverage, the tea trade became more important.
• This created a problem. England at this time produced nothing that could be easily sold in China. In such a situation, the western merchants could not finance the tea trade. They could buy tea only by paying in silver coins or bullion. This meant an outflow of treasure from England. Finally they searched for a commodity they could sell in China. Opium was such a commodity.
• In the beginning, the Chinese kept themselves away from opium because they knew the dangers of opium addiction. But soon people of all classes in China began to take the drug. Now supplies had to be increased which was a little bit difficult job.
• The Indian farmers were not willing to grow opium. But, when they were given the facility of advances, they became ready. The colonial government introduced a system of advances for the peasants of Bengal and Bihar. This was done to make them willing to produce opium for the colonial state.
• By 1773, the British government in Bengal had established a monopoly to trade in opium. No one was legally permitted to trade in the product.

Words that Matter

• Bushel: A unit for measuring grain and fruit equal in volume to 8 gallons.
• Shilling: An English currency.
• Sod: A layer of earth with grass growing on it.
• A walking plough: A device used for breaking the sod and turning the soil over.
• Scythe: A tool used for mowing grass before the mid-19th century.
• Mound: A measuring unit of weight, for example 1 mound = 40 seers. 1 seer is equivalent to 900 grammes.
• Mahato: Village headman
• Pykars: Travelling traders

Dateline

• 1773    –    The British government in Bengal had established a monopoly to trade in opium.
• 28 August, 1830    –    A threshing machine of a farmer was destroyed by labourers in East Kent.
• 1 June, 1830    –    A farmer in the north-west of England found his barn and haystack reduced to ashes by a fire that started at night.
• 1800-1850    –    The white Americans moved into the Mississippi valley.
• 1930s    –    Terrifying dust-storm occurred in southern plains.