One point that's often called out in this era, and that I didn't see you address, is the appearance of New World crops. Above all, the potato. I've heard it said that potatoes have about 2-3x the yield per acre of wheat. I'm not sure how they differ in terms of labor intensity to cultivate and harvest, though obviously they at least require less processing than wheat to be palatable.
I don't really know. I'm inclined to be somewhat skeptical of these claims about the potato, since, after all, a lot of wheat was clearly still produced after its appearance, which probably wouldn't be true if the potato were just that much better. Maybe it's that the potato was valuable as a subsistence crop, especially in marginal lands (enabling rural population expansion), but not as a commercial crop (enabling the urbanization you describe).
Potatoes did have a big impact in many European regions after 1500. I have not, however, seen much evidence of widespread planting of potatoes in Commercial societies. It was not due to climate, so it must have been some other factor.
Potatoes were very widely adopted in Ireland, and Central and Eastern Europe. In general, if potatoes are part of local cuisine today, they were adopted sometime during this period.
I will have to check the literature again, but I think that you are basically correct.
Root vegetables are great for hand gardening, but not for widespread animal-driven plowing and as a commercial crop. The potato was a perfect crop to add to gardens as a subsistence crop for farmers' families in case the other crops failed and to give variety in the diet, but not for export to cities. I do not remember anything in the literature about potato markets in Commercial cities that rivaled wheat, hops, barley, oats, and rye.
And we all know what happened to Ireland when it tried to base its entire subsistence on the potato.
And a countervailing thought I had was that since they grow underground, they might be more difficult to dig up, clean up, are "heavy", etc., before getting them ready for transport to market. The other cereal crops are cut off at the ground, I presume are also physically cleaner (not muddy), and lighter to handle [except light loads require more loads going to market = trips, animals, etc. ]
I don't really know but I would suspect that until mechanization came along, dealing with the dirt and weight, etc. of "in ground" crops was messier for commercial purposes.
Yes, transportation to market is far easier for grains, which are essentially small seeds, compared to very large and heavy potatoes. And as long as grains are kept dry and protected from pests, they last a long time in storage.
This is one of the primary reasons why there is a huge global grain trade, but nothing like it for potatoes. Potatoes are comparatively large, heavy, and require cooling to store or they start to sprout. This makes their pre-Industrial transportation much more difficult.
Fascinating stuff Michael. Coming from a Family of Spud Merchants but also as a Builder who has restored Chalets in Savoie Region and Barns in New England seeing the evidence of Families running these systems its a great insight.
Farming systems are fascinating, historically important and get very little attention. You might be interested in my other article on the topic. See the bottom of the article.
Nice explanation. I think for many of us, part of the difficulty in understanding such things is understanding how and why certain results were still geographically or culturally restricted/ isolated. We want to believe technical or social advances would or should have migrated at modern or internet speeds from one group to all of the rest.
I can think of the isolation of Appalachian valleys vs. the improved marketing offered by rivers as a con and pro situation?
What are your thoughts about the negative adage on bankruptcy that "it happened slow, then fast" as applied in a more positive sense to promoting progress?
Yes, one of the things that I think those Progress researchers (or Techno-Optimists) who focus largely on technological innovations miss are the serious geographical constraints that humanity has lived in for all of this history.
Technological innovations tend to flow to neighboring societies, societies with similar cultures, and those that have the technological preconditions. This has left out most of humanity up until recently. It is really only since 1990 that technological innovations can rapidly spread throughout the world. And the ability to manufacture those technologies is still highly constrained (though not impossible to overcome).
Absolutely brilliant! You continue to be the leading insight on World Progress.
One point that's often called out in this era, and that I didn't see you address, is the appearance of New World crops. Above all, the potato. I've heard it said that potatoes have about 2-3x the yield per acre of wheat. I'm not sure how they differ in terms of labor intensity to cultivate and harvest, though obviously they at least require less processing than wheat to be palatable.
I don't really know. I'm inclined to be somewhat skeptical of these claims about the potato, since, after all, a lot of wheat was clearly still produced after its appearance, which probably wouldn't be true if the potato were just that much better. Maybe it's that the potato was valuable as a subsistence crop, especially in marginal lands (enabling rural population expansion), but not as a commercial crop (enabling the urbanization you describe).
Yes, that is a very good point.
Potatoes did have a big impact in many European regions after 1500. I have not, however, seen much evidence of widespread planting of potatoes in Commercial societies. It was not due to climate, so it must have been some other factor.
Potatoes were very widely adopted in Ireland, and Central and Eastern Europe. In general, if potatoes are part of local cuisine today, they were adopted sometime during this period.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/0b/e7/26/0be72631024de30297d0f31bef15cfa0.jpg
I will have to check the literature again, but I think that you are basically correct.
Root vegetables are great for hand gardening, but not for widespread animal-driven plowing and as a commercial crop. The potato was a perfect crop to add to gardens as a subsistence crop for farmers' families in case the other crops failed and to give variety in the diet, but not for export to cities. I do not remember anything in the literature about potato markets in Commercial cities that rivaled wheat, hops, barley, oats, and rye.
And we all know what happened to Ireland when it tried to base its entire subsistence on the potato.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)
One other advantage of potatoes, is that since they grow underground, they're easier to hide from tax officials, or army requisition.
Good point.
And a countervailing thought I had was that since they grow underground, they might be more difficult to dig up, clean up, are "heavy", etc., before getting them ready for transport to market. The other cereal crops are cut off at the ground, I presume are also physically cleaner (not muddy), and lighter to handle [except light loads require more loads going to market = trips, animals, etc. ]
I don't really know but I would suspect that until mechanization came along, dealing with the dirt and weight, etc. of "in ground" crops was messier for commercial purposes.
Yes, transportation to market is far easier for grains, which are essentially small seeds, compared to very large and heavy potatoes. And as long as grains are kept dry and protected from pests, they last a long time in storage.
This is one of the primary reasons why there is a huge global grain trade, but nothing like it for potatoes. Potatoes are comparatively large, heavy, and require cooling to store or they start to sprout. This makes their pre-Industrial transportation much more difficult.
Fascinating stuff Michael. Coming from a Family of Spud Merchants but also as a Builder who has restored Chalets in Savoie Region and Barns in New England seeing the evidence of Families running these systems its a great insight.
Glad that you enjoyed it!
Farming systems are fascinating, historically important and get very little attention. You might be interested in my other article on the topic. See the bottom of the article.
Nice explanation. I think for many of us, part of the difficulty in understanding such things is understanding how and why certain results were still geographically or culturally restricted/ isolated. We want to believe technical or social advances would or should have migrated at modern or internet speeds from one group to all of the rest.
I can think of the isolation of Appalachian valleys vs. the improved marketing offered by rivers as a con and pro situation?
What are your thoughts about the negative adage on bankruptcy that "it happened slow, then fast" as applied in a more positive sense to promoting progress?
Yes, one of the things that I think those Progress researchers (or Techno-Optimists) who focus largely on technological innovations miss are the serious geographical constraints that humanity has lived in for all of this history.
Technological innovations tend to flow to neighboring societies, societies with similar cultures, and those that have the technological preconditions. This has left out most of humanity up until recently. It is really only since 1990 that technological innovations can rapidly spread throughout the world. And the ability to manufacture those technologies is still highly constrained (though not impossible to overcome).
I don't understand your question in the final paragraph...
Do you mean those who look at an exponential curve?
Does progress begin slowly and then increase rapidly?
Or perhaps generally a steady pace of improvement?
I would think culture and government might influence this [Meiji Japan vs. S. Korea? potentially examples of both fast and slower adoption?]