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Energy availability from livestock and agricultural productivity in Europe, 1815–1913: a new comparison
Author(s) -
KANDER ASTRID,
WARDE PAUL
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
the economic history review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.014
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1468-0289
pISSN - 0013-0117
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00526.x
Subject(s) - hectare , productivity , agriculture , livestock , agricultural economics , power (physics) , preference , agricultural productivity , proposition , economics , production (economics) , agricultural science , geography , environmental science , economic growth , forestry , microeconomics , archaeology , philosophy , physics , epistemology , quantum mechanics
This article explores the proposition that a reason for high agricultural productivity in the early nineteenth century was relatively high energy availability from draught animals. The article is based on the collection of extensive new data indicating different trends in draught power availability and the efficiency of its use in different countries of Europe. This article shows that the proposition does not hold, and demonstrates that, although towards the end of the nineteenth century England had relatively high numbers of draught animals per agricultural worker, it also had low number of workers and animals per hectare, indicating the high efficiency of muscle power, rather than an abundance of such power. The higher efficiency was related to a specialization on less labour‐intensive farming and a preference for horses over oxen.