Agricultural History Review, Volume 54 Part 2 (2006), p. 355

This is the second book in a new series by the History of Lincolnshire Committee. The book focuses on farming in the county from 1850 to the end of the Second World War. It is a well-written, clearly presented account of a period of significant change in agriculture which makes extensive use of primary sources, particularly the agricultural returns, parliamentary reports and the estate papers of local landowners.

The book is divided into two parts; the first (pp.5–82) looks more generally at the county, with chapters on the farmers, the landowners and workers, the pattern of farming and the nature and practice of farming. The second, more substantial section (pp.83–273) presents a broadly chronological account of agricultural change during the period under study, starting with the ‘high farming’ era before looking at the great depression, then asking the question ‘what became of high farming?’ prior to investigating the period 1896 to 1930. Chapter 10 backtracks slightly to consider ‘New Farming, New Farmers, 1925–1940’, while the final chapter considers the Second World War. The book might therefore be considered somewhat conventional in its approach, but Brown remains aware of the potential limitations of his own self-imposed straitjacket and avoids the trap of simply fitting his data to the chronological categories he has chosen. He effectively highlights the diversity of the county without ever segmenting the analysis to the point where valid generalizations can no longer be made.

The book provides interesting insights into the strategies adopted by farmers from the final quarter of the nineteenth century in an effort to maintain profitability during what were generally difficult times for those arable regions of England distant from the growing markets of the industrializing towns. Brown presents an authoritative account of the development of potato production in the county along with an interesting discussion of the early days of bulb production. He also considers at length the varying fortunes of the principal cereal crops and the mixed husbandry that had underpinned the prosperity of much of the county during the high farming era.

The author’s own background in the county comes through clearly in the comfortable manner in which he blends geography and history within his account without ever over-simplifying or classifying the changes he explains. Criticisms of the text are relatively minor. Extensive use is made of an interesting range of photographs, particularly from the collection of the Museum of English Rural Life. However, none of these is referred to directly in the text, and in some cases (Figure 24 for instance) photograph and text relate to different time periods. The photographs appear to decorate rather than illuminate the text. I also felt that handwritten labelling on graphs (Figure 19) should have been replaced by a more professional-looking typed text.

A more important reservation lies in what this book does not cover. Compared to the farmer, little is said about the agricultural workforce. Nor does the book say much about the wider rural community or the social changes which took place over the period. Farming is placed in something of a vacuum, with physical geography and the economic and political factors which determined profitability its only significant influences. The book can therefore more readily be categorized as ‘agricultural’ rather than ‘rural’ history. Nevertheless, this book is an authoritative account of changes in farming in Lincolnshire over the period and should prove an extremely useful reference in discussions of agricultural developments between the mid-nineteenth century and the Second World War.