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Energy availability from livestock and agricultural productivity in Europe, 1815-1913: a new comparison

Author

Summary, in English

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.

Publishing year

2011

Language

English

Pages

1-29

Publication/Series

Economic History Review

Volume

64

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Topic

  • Economic History

Keywords

  • draught animals
  • horses
  • oxen
  • land productivity
  • England
  • labour productivity
  • energy

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1468-0289