What is Marling agricultural revolution?

Answer 1

Charles 'Turnip' Townshend

He popularized new techniques and proved that they were more profitable. He:

• Introduced the Norfolk Four-Course crop rotation (wheat, turnips, barley, clover)

to Britain. Turnips were used as a cleansing crop to allow the land to be hoed to kill

the weeds, and clover was grown to replace the nutrients in the soil that the crops

had depleted. This rotation prevented land from lying fallow and both turnips and

clover were fodder crops, which could be fed to animals to allow more of them to

survive cold winters.

• Used a method called marling, which mixed rich subsoil with a poorer sandy soil to

produce better quality crops and increasingly more profit.

• Gave his tenant farmers longer leases to encourage them to invest more money to

experiment with new ideas and improving their land.