The Impact of Science on Agriculture

Abstract

In spite of considerable diversity, agricultural systems in the prescientific 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 pessant 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. Unfortunately, the strip system of farming was incapable of improvement by scientific means, and as soon as the peasants insisted on a higher standard of living it had to go. The method of change varied in different countries, Russia adopted one way and Poland another. Instead of scattered strips the agricultural holding was brought into one self-contained unit. Here science was able to play its part. Unfortunately, as science came in so the peasants' arts and crafts, the colour, the singing and the dancing got somehow crowded out; they ceased to be spontaneous peasant activities and are becoming only museum pieces. It would be a great advantage to the country side if, somehow, this apparent antagonism could be overcome.