Wellmann Imre szerk.: A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum Közleményei 1971-1972 (Budapest, 1973)
Blake, Susan: A geographical analysis of agricultural engineering in Britain in the 19th century
2. Similarly, the drilling husbandry launched by Tull 6 came to fruition when development of drilling machines received greater attention, and the more general diffusion of the practice began — between 1780 and 1820. The initial focus of invention, like that of ploughs, was in the Scottish Lowlands. Typically, the implements developed there were as simple and cheap as possible, generally using wood rather than iron, and the maintainace of this thrift and simplicity in the face of increasing sophistication may possibly have been a factor which allowed the leading role of innovation to pass to East Anglia. Quite logically, the focus of innovation within the industry corresponded with the most progressive agricultural areas of the time, but once established in East Anglia (by the first decade of the 19th c), it has remained, fostered by locational centrality and the inertia of established plant. It was not until the efforts of agricultural societies 7 and the improvement of mass media had increased the general level of awareness, augmented by improved communications, that the efficiency of the diffusion process and the increased demand for implements was such that the agricultural engineering industry could flourish. Tightening of the labour market, emergence of larger scale units on production-line bases, increasing segmentation of industry, exponential growth of awareness and demand for implements, perhaps catalysed by railway development and population growth, combined to provoke the upsurge of the industry after 1835. But the diffusion process is long and complex, depending on many diverse factors, including human irrationality, so that the time lag between adoption, and the rates of adoption of new implements varied very greatly. There was, for example, a lag of 50 to 70 years between the general adoption of drilling in East Lothian, and parts of Cumberland. A major barrier seems to have been the cost of the drill machines, those of 1820 costing £5 to £15 more than the reapers of late 1870's for example. And because thorough preparation of the seed bed is demanded for successful drilling, far more was involved in the adoption of the practice than the mere cost of the drill machine. The general pattern was for landed gentry to be the initial innovators, or perhaps local industrial entrepreneurs, with their greater contact with industrial technique. Their ideas only gradually trickled down to the more prosperous and outward looking farmers of the district, and came lastly to the small farmers who tended to cling tenaciously to old ways. 8 3. During the third phase, the same sequence of events occurred in the development of threshing machinery as had done in the development of ploughs and drills. Mechanized threshing carried with it two important inputs into our system though. Firstly, it necessitated a major reorganization of labour on the farm, as the new threshers could accomplish in days what had been reserved as an indoor occupation for labourers unable to get on the land. Released therefore for additional landwork, with consequent improvement of tilth, facilitated by drainage and the simultaneous development of such impleCTULL, JETHRO. The Horse Hoeing Husbandry ... 1733. 7 See: Farmers Magazine, 1805 onwards, give lists of local societies. The Royal Agricultural Society of England was established 1839. 8 See: HAGESTRAND, T. Propagation of Innovation Waves. (Lund Studies in Geography, B no. 4.) 1952. — ROGERS, E. M. The Diffusion of Innovations. New York 1962. — JONES, G. E. Adoption and Diffusion of Agricultural Practices. (World Agricultural Economy and Rural Society Abstracts I. 3.) 1967. 24* 371
