Agricultural Productivity in Eighteenth‐Century England: Some Further Speculations

D r Turner's new estimates of national crop yields per acre at the turn of the eighteenth century are to be welcomed. Although they are broadly similar to the figures we already have (his average of I9.5 bushels per acre compares with Fussell's 22 and McCulloch's 2I) they do seem to be based on more reliable sources.1 Further, Turner's speculations about changes in wheat yields during the eighteenth century add another voice to the existing complaints about Deane and Cole's assertion of a io per cent rise.2 However, lest Turner's conclusions become "fossilized", as he thinks Deane and Cole's have become,3 this comment is directed at certain misleading assertions he makes about trends in yields per acre. In an attempt to resolve some of these difficulties the earlier estimates are re-examined, leading to the conclusion that existing national estimates of wheat yields in England between c. i650 and c. I770 cannot form a suitable basis for evaluating either the magnitude or the trend of yields during the course of the eighteenth century.