Harvest Technology and Labour Supply in Britain, 1790-1870.

This article focuses on the harvest technology for the production of small grains and the state of farm labor supply in Great Britain during 1790-1870. In Great Britain and Japan the most successful developments in raising farm output were secured initially via the gradual penetration of inexpensive biological innovations. In one proto-industrial agriculture in Great Britain, the demand for labour-saving methods was successfully met by an intermediate technology, developed within or alongside an existing framework of traditional hand-tool techniques. The author presents three counter arguments: first, that between 1790 and 1870 there occurred in Britain an important transformation in hand-harvesting technology secured for the most part through the intermediate technology of improved hand-tool methods; second, that this was primarily a response to a deteriorating harvest labour market; and third, that for some time after 1850 many farmers preferred to deepen their investment in this range of seemingly obsolescent techniques rather than to exploit the more worth-while factor-saving alternative of mechanization.