2 - Agricultural Literature in Scandinavia and the Anglo-Saxon Countries as an Indicator of a Deep-Rooted Economic Enlightenment, c.1700–1800

Summary

The Economic Enlightenment in the countryside saw a change in the knowledge systems at play and the establishment of a culture of innovation aimed at optimizing agricultural production. To examine this process of change, I will use agricultural literature published in Scandinavia and in the Anglo-Saxon countries during the eighteenth century as an indicator. The hypothesis the chapter wishes to advance is that literature about agriculture was a consequence of changes in agricultural practices, rather than affecting such changes. To put it differently: the authors often addressed issues being discussed more generally in society in formal and informal knowledge networks.

Agricultural literature is one of the oldest and most important non-fictional genres. Columella's work on agriculture from the first century of the Common Era runs to more than 200,000 words. From the sixteenth century there was an expansion of this literature in the West, with a rapid increase from the eighteenth century onwards. Though these works were not widely disseminated, and the direct influence seems to have been rather limited, the proliferation of texts offering a more practical, hands-on approach was a burgeoning part of an even faster growing general intellectual debate within society.

If this agricultural literature reflected the discourses in society at large, they can also be used to study new attitudes, such as the greater appreciation of novelty and innovations. This was a deep, underlying current that was transforming the countryside, an increasingly critical discussion, also among farmers, about how to manage farming, which was combined with growing communication between different social strata where the literate upper class was not only delivering information, but perhaps even more obtaining information from below.

I am not proposing that tradition and stagnation were totally prevalent before then, and I do not argue that this literature provides us with accurate information about what was on the agenda at village meetings or general discussions in the churchyard. However, when the literature does begin to become more widespread, it is in fact one of the few indicators we have about broader societal discussion on these issues. Agricultural literature allows us to reach further back into history than most other sources, as we try to understand the contemporary discussions on farming from any given time.