Energy availability from livestock and agricultural productivity in Europe, 1815-1913: a new comparison
Författare
Summary, in English
This article explores the proposition that a reason for high agricultural productivity in the early nineteenth century was relatively high energy availability from draught animals. The article is based on the collection of extensive new data indicating different trends in draught power availability and the efficiency of its use in different
countries of Europe. This article shows that the proposition does not hold, and demonstrates that, although towards the end of the nineteenth century England had relatively high numbers of draught animals per agricultural worker, it also had low number of workers and animals per hectare, indicating the high efficiency of muscle power, rather than an abundance of such power.The higher efficiency was related to a specialization on less labour-intensive farming and a preference for horses over
oxen.
countries of Europe. This article shows that the proposition does not hold, and demonstrates that, although towards the end of the nineteenth century England had relatively high numbers of draught animals per agricultural worker, it also had low number of workers and animals per hectare, indicating the high efficiency of muscle power, rather than an abundance of such power.The higher efficiency was related to a specialization on less labour-intensive farming and a preference for horses over
oxen.
Avdelning/ar
Publiceringsår
2011
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
1-29
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Economic History Review
Volym
64
Issue
1
Länkar
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Wiley-Blackwell
Ämne
- Economic History
Nyckelord
- draught animals
- horses
- oxen
- land productivity
- England
- labour productivity
- energy
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 1468-0289