Hello, I'm Mr. Marchin and thank you for joining me for today's history lesson.

I'll be guiding you through all of our resources today, and my top priority is to make sure that by the end of our lesson, you're able to successfully meet our learning objective.

Welcome to today's lesson, which is part of our unit on the Industrial Revolution, where we're asking ourselves, did industrialization revolutionise people's lives in Britain? Today's lesson is gonna focus on explaining the significance of the agricultural revolution.

So we're gonna be thinking just a little bit before the beginning of the Industrial Revolution itself.

It's gonna give us important context for understanding how the Industrial Revolution was able to occur.

There are five key words that are gonna help us navigate our way through today's lesson.

Those are agriculture, fallow, arable, enclosure and fertiliser.

Agriculture is the work and methods of growing crops and looking after animals that are then used for food.

If farmland is left fallow, it is not planted with any crops.

Arable land is suitable and used for growing crops.

Enclosure was the practise of turning land owned by a group of people into fenced off land owned by a single person.

And a fertiliser is a substance that you put on land in order to make plants grow well.

Today's lesson is split into three parts, and we're going to begin by focusing on the problems of English agriculture.

Before 1700, England's population rose and fell at different times.

The population rarely grew larger than five million though, and this is because there were problems in agriculture which helped to limit population growth in England.

English agriculture was not productive by modern standards in the centuries before 1700.

There were three key issues in English agriculture before 1700, which made it so unproductive.

These were the availability of land, overly divided land and fallow land.

Part of the reason why English agriculture was not very productive before 1700 was because of the limited availability of land.

Most arable land was already being used for farming, and what was left was difficult to use.

For example, The Fens in the east of England had submitted best soil in the entire country for farming.

However, The Fens were also large areas of wetlands where many people made a living by fishing and hunting.

This land was mostly unavailable for farming because of the difficulty of removing the water and local opposition.

Farmland in England was also overly divided.

It was common for the fields around most villages to be split into separate strips, each of which was farmed by different individuals.

This was known as the open field system.

This allowed most people to have some access to land of their own, but it was inefficient.

The individual strips worked on by each farmer were often quite far apart from one another, so they wasted a lot of time travelling between strips.

Furthermore, because many people had stripped the land on the same field, it was difficult to make changes to the way people farmed.

Everyone had to farm in the same way.

Finally, the amount of land left fallow was a major problem for English agriculture.

Popular crops like wheat and oats take nutrients out of the soil as they grow.

Over time, this exhausts the soil.

To help the soil recover, fields usually used for farming were often left fallow every third or fourth year.

In 1700, this meant that 20% of all arable land in England was left fallow.

This meant that a lot of suitable and available arable land was regularly out of use.

So now that we've heard about some of the key issues in English agriculture before 1700, we wanna make sure that our understanding is secure.

So let's answer this question.

How much arable land was left fallow each year in England in 1700? Was it 5%, 20%, or 45%? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well then to everybody who said the correct answer was B.

20% of all arable land was left fallow each year in England in 1700.

This meant that a lot of land which was suitable for farming was going unused.

Now I want you to write the missing word in the following sentence.

The open field system meant most fields was split into narrow blank, of land, which were farmed by different people.

Pause the video here, write the missing word and press play when you're ready to see the correct answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the missing word was strips.

The open field system meant most fields were split into narrow strips of land which were farmed by different people.

So now that we've made sure that our understanding is secure, we are ready to put our knowledge into practise.

I want you to match up each of the problems in English agriculture with the relevant descriptions.

So we've got our three problem shown on the left hand side, the availability of land, overly divided land and fallow land, and our three descriptions are on the right.

You just need to match them up.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answers.

Okay, well done for all of your hard work on that task.

So I asked you to match up each of the problems in English agriculture with their relevant descriptions.

So for the availability of land, you should have matched that up to our description that said, there was lots of land in the Fens, but it was too wet to farm.

For the problem of overly divided land, you should have match that up to the description that says, farmers usually worked on narrow individual strips of land, and that means for our problem of fallow land, you should have matched that up to the description that said 20% of arable land each year was not being used in 1700.

So really well done for your work on that task, especially if you matched up each three of the problems and descriptions correctly.

Now we're ready to move on to the second part of today's lesson where we are gonna focus on the agricultural revolution itself.

Several major changes began to take place in English agriculture in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Collectively, these have been referred to as part of the agricultural revolution.

We are going to run through what exactly some of these major changes were.

Enclosure was one method of farming, which made English agriculture more productive.

Enclosure involved rich landlords fencing off entire fields and treating the land within as as a single unit rather than dividing it into many narrow strips.

Because enclosed fields were larger and had a single owner, they were more efficient to farm.

And it was also easier to introduce new farming techniques.

However, enclosure frequently involved removing people's previous rights to live on and use the land, causing huge disruption to many lives.

So let's just check our understanding of what we've heard about enclosure.

I want you to write the missing keyword in the following sentence.

Blank created bigger farms which were more efficient and productive.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Now okay, well then to everybody who said the missing keyword was enclosure.

Enclosure created bigger farms which were more efficient and productive.

This was one important part of the agricultural revolution.

Beginning in the 17th century and continuing for hundreds of years after, major attempts were made at draining the Fens, those wetlands in Eastern England.

Importantly, these drainage schemes frequently had powerful support from the monarch as the English crown was one of the biggest landowners in the area.

Pumps operated by windmills helped to drain some of the areas around Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, creating large amounts of new land, which was available for farming.

Landowners in the area like the king and the Earl of Bedford began to make huge profits from farming on the newly drained lands.

On the screen, you can see a painting of some of the windmills used to power pumps, which helped to drain the Fens.

So let's make sure we have a secure understanding of what we've just heard.

Which method made new land available for farming? Was it crop rotation, drainage, enclosure or the use of fertiliser? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was drainage.

Drainage made new land available for farming because it removed the water, which had previously stopped some suitable land from being used, especially in areas such as the Fens.

One of the most important new techniques introduced during the agricultural revolution was crop rotation.

Crop rotation involved planting different types of plants on the same field over a four year cycle.

These included traditional crops like wheat and oats, but also included new crops like turnips and clover.

This was important because clover and turnips actually restored nutrients to the soil they were grown in.

The rotation of these crops prevented the soil from becoming exhausted, and therefore, meant that land did not need to be left fallow.

Because unlike grass, clover and turnips also grow well in winter, the use of these plants also meant that there was food to keep farm animals alive all over winter too, which meant more meat could be produced as well.

This crop rotation was introduced to England in the late 17th century and promoted by some important figures such as Charles Townshend, who became known as Turnip Townshend as a result.

It was easiest to make these changes on lands which had already been enclosed.

So let's make sure our understanding of crop rotation is secure.

I want you to identify whether each of the following statements is true or false.

Indicate your answers with a tick for true or across for false.

Our statements read, crop rotation led to more meat production, crop rotation involved plants like turnips and clover.

Crop rotation reduced the amount of fallow land and crop rotation worked worse on enclosed fields.

So pause the video here and press play when you are ready to check your answers.

Okay, so thinking about each of our statements, our first statement was true, crop rotation did lead to more meat production because crops like turnips and clover could still be grown in the winter and could be used to feed animals.

The second statement is also true.

Crop rotation involve plants like turnips and clover as I've just said.

Our third statement or statement C is true as well.

Crop rotation did reduce the amount of fallow land.

Because turnips and clover restored nutrients to the soil, it meant that fields didn't need to be left fallow anymore.

And finally, statement D was false.

Qua rotation actually worked best on enclosed fields because it was a big change to the way people farmed.

This was easiest to do if a large area of land had just one farmer rather than many people who owned and worked on the land.

So really well done for your work on that task, especially if you identified each statement correctly.

The use of fertilisers became more common during the agricultural revolution.

Fertilisers add more nutrients to the soil.

The most common types of fertiliser used for farming were manure from animals and humans.

This manure could be collected and applied to fields to allow more crops to be grown.

Because crop rotation made it easier for farmers to keep animals, the amount of fertiliser available also increased, so farmers could enjoy multiple benefits from their new techniques.

Similarly, farmers living close to large cities like London had access to large amounts of night soil, which was regularly collected and sold to farmers.

On the screen, you can actually see an illustration of night soil being collected from a typical 17th century English city.

So let's just make sure our understanding is really secure.

Starting with the earliest, sort these farming steps to show how crop rotation and the use of fertilisers was linked.

Arrange the letters A to D to indicate your answer.

So our steps are increase in the amount of manure produced on farms, farmers had direct access to more fertiliser, more animals could be kept and fed during the winter and farmers planted clover and turnips during their crop rotations.

So pause the video here, arrange the letters in what you think is the right order and then press play when you're ready to see if you got it correct.

Okay, so you should have arranged your letters into the following order, D, C, A, B.

Because farmers planted clover and turnips during their crop rotations, this allowed more animals to be kept and fed during the winter because there were more animals, there was an increase in the amount of manure produced on farms, and as a result, farmers had direct access to more fertiliser.

So well done if you arranged all of those steps into the correct order.

Let's try another question.

Which method for improving agriculture does the image shown on the screen relate to? Is it crop rotation, drainage, enclosure or the use of fertiliser? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the image relates to the use of fertiliser.

That's because our illustration shows night soil being collected from a city in England.

Night soil was another name for human waste, and that waste, just like manure from animals, could be used to restore nutrients to soil.

And finally, let's try one more question just to make sure our understanding that the methods used in the agricultural revolution is really secure.

Is the following statement, true or false? The agricultural revolution mainly involved changes in technology.

So pause the video here, decide whether it's true or false, and press play when you're ready to see if you got it right.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that statement is actually false, but we need to be able to justify our answers.

So we have two justifications which have appeared on the screen.

The first says improvements in agriculture occurred mainly because of the use of new farming methods.

And our second justification says that improvements in agriculture occurred mainly because more workers were found for farms. So which one of those two justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the first justification is the correct one.

Improvements in agriculture occurred mainly because of the use of new farming methods such as enclosure, the use of fertilisers or drainage.

So now we are ready to put all of our knowledge about the methods used in the agricultural revolution into practise.

I want you to explain one reason why agriculture became more productive during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Write one paragraph to answer this question.

So pause the video here and press play while you're ready to reflect on your response.

Okay, well done or all of your hard work on that task.

I asked you to explain one reason why agriculture became more productive during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Your answer may have included that one reason why agriculture became more productive during the 17th and 18th centuries was because of crop rotation.

This involved planting different types of crops such as wheat, clover and turnips in different years.

This helped to protect soil from exhaustion, meaning that it did not have to be left fallow.

So really well done if your own response looked something like that model we've just seen.

You may also have talked about the use of enclosure, fertilisers and drainage.

So now we're ready to move on to the third and final part of our lesson for today where we are gonna discuss the significance of the agricultural revolution.

The agricultural revolution helped make Britain's later industrial revolution possible.

The agricultural revolution had three key impacts which made this possible.

These key impacts were higher food production, encouraged migration and increased profits.

So let's think about how each of those impacts occurred as a result of the agricultural revolution and how they helped the industrial revolution to follow.

Higher food production was a key impact to the agricultural revolution.

Now, this one should seem an obvious consequence of making farming more productive, but it was really important for Britain as a whole because as more food became available, it was easier for the population to rise.

And as Britain's population grew, this meant that more workers were available to be employed in industry, and that would be very important for the industrial revolution to have a bigger supply of workers.

The agricultural evolution also encouraged migration.

Methods such as enclosure and also other methods like drainage helped to disrupt people's way of life.

This often led to people leaving the land that they had previously lived on and farmed on.

Many of these people who moved away moved to cities, and that migration created a bigger supply of workers in the areas that would soon become industrial centres for Britain.

So this was also very important for helping the industrial revolution to occur.

And finally, while some farmers struggled as a result of the agricultural revolution and being moved away from their land, others were very successful and made huge profits.

Now this was really important because not only did it benefit those farmers themselves, but they were able to use their money to invest in other parts of the economy.

This helped to generate further economic growth and created other job opportunities elsewhere, including in industry.

So let's just make sure our understanding of the significance of the agricultural revolution is secure.

We have a statement which says the agricultural revolution only had positive impacts.

Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that statement is false, but we need to be able to justify our answers.

So we've got two justifications which are currently visible.

The first says that many people felt they had little choice but to migrate from where they lived and worked.

The second justification says that the benefits to the agricultural revolution did not affect people living in towns and cities.

So which one of those two justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the first justification is the correct one.

Many people felt that they had little choice but to migrate as a result of the agricultural revolution.

Things like enclosure and the drainage of the Fens disrupted traditional ways of life.

So people were unable to live and work in the ways that they always had and looked to move to other parts of the country instead.

So well done if you answered that question correctly.

So we're now ready to put all of our knowledge and understanding of the significance of the agricultural revolution into practise.

We have two statements visible on the screen.

Laura says that the agricultural revolution had a widespread impact.

Izzy says that the agricultural revolution mainly mattered for farmers.

So I want you to study those two statements again.

Who do you agree with more? And I want you to explain your answer.

You might use the following sentence starters to help you.

I agree with Laura or Izzy more because, so pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your response.

Okay, really well done for your hard work on that task.

So I asked you which statement, Laura or Izzy's, did you agree with more? And I asked you to explain your answer.

So you may have written that I agree with Laura more because although farmers were able to achieve higher profits, they could use this to spend on other things.

This meant that profits from the agricultural revolution could lead to more money and even jobs for others not working in agriculture.

So its impact was widespread.

So really well done for your work on that answer.

And that means we've now reached the end of today's lesson.

So to summarise our learning from today, we've seen that before 1700, agriculture wasn't very productive.

Changes like enclosure, drainage, the use of fertiliser and crop rotation helped to make agriculture more productive.

The agricultural revolution increased food production, encouraged migration and increased profits.

The agricultural revolution helped to make Britain's industrial revolution possible.

So really welcome for all of your hard work in today's lesson.

It's been a pleasure to have you joining me, and I look forward to seeing you again in future as we think further about the industrial revolution and whether industrialization really revolutionised people's lives in Britain.