Importance of Agriculture. Even during the era of industrialization, the production of food was of primary importance. In fact, as cities grew and housed burgeoning, non-food-producing populations, the countryside was called upon to produce ever greater surpluses of food products to be shipped to urban markets. Before the coming of the railroad and steamboat, transporting grain and dairy goods was slow, expensive, and risky. In times of bad harvests, for example, wagons and barges filled with food for urban areas were often attacked and emptied by starving villagers and peasants.

Fallow Farming. Until well into the nineteenth century various factors limited the amount of food Europeans could produce. In the absence of artificial fertilizers and knowledge about crop rotation, fields were fertilized by grazing cows and other animals while the land lay fallow. In most areas...