Farmers, landlords and landscapes

"Between 1720 and 1870, the British countryside went through a revolution. Agricultural productivity rose exponentially to meet the demands of a growing, urbanised and industrialised population. The changes, however, were not just economic; both rural society and the rural landscape were also transformed. Much of the countryside we are familiar with today can be dated to this period, especially in areas where arable agriculture predominates." "In all of this farmers were key players. Moving away from economic analysis, and focusing instead on rural society, Susanna Wade Martins tells their story. She explores how new farming landscapes were the outcome of a crucial relationship: between the landlord, who usually provided the capital to implement new methods, and the tenant farmer, who managed the farm. Bound by a greater net of Parliamentary enclosures, the British landscape was made to serve the end of the nation's industrial expansion. 'Planned landscapes' were not, however, uniform, and there is a need to reveal a complex pattern, with 'improvement' in some areas actually contributing to regional distinctiveness." "Drawing on the details of contemporary accounts from Caithness to East Anglia, this book tells the human and environmental story of the Age of Improvement. It is a book for all those interested in landscape history and the social history of Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries."--Jacket.