How did the agricultural revolution affect the Industrial revolution?
Mechanisation had no real effect on agriculture, machines were devised but they were too expensive to use for the couple of days they would be needed for and too heavy for the wet fields. In West Yorkshire many of those that were involved in the wool and worsted trades were also farmers or agricultural labourers who used the textile trade to supplement their income from farm work. In East Lancashire dairy farming became big business in conjunction with industrialisation, towns like Blackburn, Burnley and Bolton were only sparsely populated before industrialisation, so there was not the same demand for farm wares before industrialisation took place. As a foot note I have just completed a Technology and society module at Uni and the Professor who took us doubts that there was a significant agricultural revolution at all, and to some extent I agree with him.
