In medieval western Europe, the weather was not beautiful, and the climate and soil were not good. How do farmers get high yield?

Agriculture is the pillar industry of feudal society. Without the continuous progress of agricultural technology, there is no way to feed a certain number of people, the country's economic scale and consumer market can not be expanded, and productivity can not be improved. So if agricultural production is the mother of industrial cities, it should be exaggerated. Today, let's look at the agricultural life in ancient Europe.

First, the harsh soil and climate conditions in Western Europe

The starting point of European farming technology in the Middle Ages was very low. Although European civilization inherited the Greek and Roman culture, the Germans destroyed the Roman mode of production. Because Germans have long been mainly engaged in animal husbandry, they have developed extensive farming habits. During the hundreds of years from the 5th century to the 9th century, they could only harvest two or three times as much as they planted. At that time, the agricultural output in western Europe was very low, and Europeans often died of food shortage.

The war between the Germans and the Romans

Western Europe in the Middle Ages was regrettable because of the lack of climatic conditions suitable for agriculture. There are many climate types in western Europe, including Mediterranean climate and various maritime climate. However, there is a common problem in most parts of Europe, which is the lack of "rain and heat synchronization". That is to say, when the rainy season comes, although plants can be nourished by water, there is not enough sunlight for photosynthesis. When the sun shines high, plants that lack water grow slowly or even wither.

It is usually rainy in London.

In addition to climate, soil conditions in western Europe are not suitable for agricultural production. Different from the rich environment in the East, most of western Europe was uncultivated woodland and swamp at that time, and the soil types were mostly frozen soil, clay and sandy soil widely existing in the north. The surface landscape of western Europe is not suitable for the emergence of large-scale farms, and the land types can not provide necessary nutrients for crops. The work of cutting down forests and draining swamps also increased the labor cost of ancient farmers.

European farmers who "return their hoes to Dai Yue"

Second, manor system and animal husbandry have improved productivity.

We all know that agricultural production needs "the right time, the right place and the right people". Although the "geographical position" in Western Europe is not superior, the development of agriculture can be regarded as catching up with "favorable weather" and "harmony with people".

At first, the farming methods in medieval western Europe were also very backward. Before the 10 century, Europeans usually needed 4 to 8 cows to pull heavy plows. Although the emergence of heavy-duty plough provides the possibility to solve the problem of clay plough, it is extremely labor-intensive and material-intensive.

However, because the agricultural production organization in Europe is manor system under the leadership of lords, this is one of the "human harmony" factors in agricultural production. Under the manor system, the wealthy feudal owners regarded the serfs in the fields as their accessories, so they used expensive means of production such as plows and cattle. In addition, the Germanic people have traditionally had the habit of raising a large number of cattle, so it is indeed a convenient and efficient thing to farm with livestock. This has promoted the transformation and progress of agricultural reclamation technology in western Europe.

The introduction of Niu Geng has helped Europeans greatly increase their food production.

The problem of insufficient land fertility, which is often encountered in traditional agriculture, was also well solved in the Middle Ages. The diet structure of Europeans is mainly coarse grains and meat. In addition to raising animals for farming, Europeans also raise a large number of food livestock.

A large number of livestock will excrete rich manure and fertilizer. Fertilizer can improve the production efficiency of agricultural products, and more agricultural products can feed newborn livestock. The meat of livestock can enhance the physical strength of farmers, thus expanding the cultivated area. In this way, a virtuous cycle of agricultural development model has been formed.

Third, from the two-nursery system to the three-nursery system, the total grain output has increased.

However, it is not enough just to improve the fertility of the land. Land is not a perpetual motion machine that follows planting and harvesting, and the fact that land needs fallow will not be changed by increasing the application of natural fertilizers. Unreasonable utilization of soil fertility is likely to cause "overload" of productivity.

There are always endless problems. After successfully stabilizing grain production, western Europeans must consider the risk of infinitely reusing the same land for sustainable production.

European farm

Around the 10 century, European farmers usually used a simple dichotomy to deal with problems, which was called "two nursery systems". Nursery is a rectangular strip of soil, and farmers will pay attention to retaining the fertility of the other half of the land when producing in the field. "Semi-production and semi-leisure" is an effective rotation farming method to protect soil fertility. Three-nursery system is a more advanced rotation system. The cultivated land is divided into strips, and the land of the manor owner and the land of the serf are connected in turn.

Compared with the two-care system, the three-care system was not as popular as expected at first. Because there are three nurseries with relatively high agricultural output, which meets the needs of European population growth, it is gradually popularized. The three plots are divided into autumn and winter fields, spring fields and leisure fields. Ideally, the original agricultural production efficiency can be increased by half.

Fourth, the progress of supporting facilities and breeding details.

The progress of aquaculture technology and "supporting facilities" often go hand in hand. If you are lucky enough to see European fields, observers will find that European farmland is very different from ours. The fields in Europe are much larger than the small fields in the East, and most of them are rectangular rather than square.

What's going on here?

The earliest European farmland was also square for the convenience of division. However, with the reclamation of Xintian and the merger of old fields, the manor gradually began to focus on Nagata. This is because when using livestock for farming, it is not easy for livestock to turn back when pulling the plow, so the longer the strip field is, the more convenient it is for farm animals to use.

You can see the "strip fields" in Europe from the painting.

Later, farmers invented a harness that was convenient for horse-drawn plows. Due to the rising price of cattle in the late Middle Ages, it was the best choice for people to use a horse-drawn plow with suitable harness. The neck of the cow is too thick, and a large area of harness is easy to choke the cow's trachea, which leads to suffocation. Besides the neck, horses are more suitable for wearing harness and forming a combined plow team.

/kloc-at the beginning of the 0/5th century, farmers' production tools were also improved a lot. In the Middle Ages, farmers generally used long-handled sickles, which were only suitable for harvesting long plants. /kloc-After 0/5th century, the long-handled sickle was replaced by a lighter short-handled sickle. In the past, only the ears of wheat could be cut when harvesting wheat, but now the straw can also be cut. Straw can be used as feed for livestock, killing two birds with one stone.