Transcript Changes to Agricultural Life

Tess of the D’Urbervilles
The Decline of Agriculture
 There was an agricultural depression spanning from the
mid 1870s to the end of the century
 Poor seasons between 1874-1882: rain caused grain to
rot, crops to be blighted, and cattle to catch pneumonia
 Foreign competition from America, and poor
production in England caused prices to fall
 British goods were more
expensive due to the high cost
of transporting them by rail
Hardy and the depression
 Hardy reflects on the agricultural depression, using the
two settings of Talbothays and Flintcomb-Ash. His poem
“We Field Women” recreated these settings:
How it snowed
When we crossed from Flintcomb-Ash
To the Wheat Barn for drawing reed,
Since we could nowise chop a swede.
Flakes in each doorway & casement-sash;
How it snowed!
How it rained
When we went to Flintcomb-Ash,
And could not stand upon the hill
Trimming Swedes for the slicing-mill.
Wet washed through us – plash, plash, plash
How it rained!
How it shone
When we went from Flintcomb-Ash
To start at dairywork once more
In the laughing meads, with cows threescore,
And pails, & songs, & love – too rash;
How it shone!
 Employments were temporary, and affected by the seasons:
"Did Crick speak to you today, dear, about his not wanting much
assistance during the winter months?“ (Chapter 32), “The dairywork lasted only till the milk began to lessen” (Chapter 41)
 This meant unemployment was very common for
agricultural labourers, cementing their poverty
 There was also much competition
for work as agriculture declined
leaving surplus workers. Mobility
therefore increased: “annual migrations
from farm to farm were on the increase here” (Chapter 51)
 The dispossession of country people was common: Hardy
reflects this by the Durbeyfield’s removal after John dies:
“the Durbeyfields were expellable” (Chapter 51)
Depopulation
 High unemployment, poor
nourishment, lack of housing and
low wages (particularly low in
Dorset) caused mass depopulation
 In Dorset, there were 18,000 agricultural labourers in 1871,
15,700 in 1881, and 12,500 in 1891
 Hardy reflects on this:
“These families, who had formed the backbone of the village life in the
past who were the depositaries of the village traditions, had to seek
refuge in the large centres; the process, humorously designated by
statisticians as "the tendency of the rural population towards the
large towns", being really the tendency of water to flow uphill when
forced by machinery” (Chapter 51)
Modernity and agriculture
 Compared to grain farming, the dairy business was less affected
by the depression and industrialisation: the new railways meant
milk could be transported to big cities e.g. London, Manchester
and Birmingham quickly (important- no refrigeration). "Londoners
will drink it at their breakfasts tomorrow” (Chapter 30)
 Dairyman Crick’s relative prosperity reflects this: “” Their largeveined udders hung ponderous as sandbags, the teats sticking out like the
legs of a gipsy’s crock and as each animal lingered for her turn to arrive
the milk oozed forth and fell in drops to the ground” (Chapter 16)
 However the trains are also sinister, Hardy referring to them as
“hissing” “almost silently upon the wet rails”- reflects threat of
modernisation. In Jude the Obscure, Hardy uses railways to
suggest machinery is replacing religion: “I think I’d rather sit in the
railway station…That’s the centre of the town life now. The Cathedral
has had its day”
 Talbothays retains traditional pre-industrial methods, which are
presented idyllically, Kettle arguing this creates “a closeness to the
actual rhythms of nature itself and a retention of many of the traditional
habits and relationships of country life”
 In contrast, the industrial agriculture at Flintcomb-Ash presents
the lack of harmony between nature and mechanisation: “starveacre place” (Chapter 42)
 Small farms decreased to give way to
large factory farms, like Flintcomb-Ash:
“There was not a tree within sight; there was not,
at this season, a green pasture – nothing but fallow
and turnips everywhere; in large fields divided by
hedges plashed to unrelieved levels” (Chapter 42)
 As wealthy landowners bought up smaller farms, English
peasants became landless labourers
 Root crops were grown in winter to feed cattle, to produce
manure all the year round and keep up with the new demand for
meat
 The turnip symbolised the end of traditional rural life: “[A]ll
our mutton now-adays is, alas! mere animated turnip”
(“Ramble” 388)
 New machines could sew turnips in straight lines, deposit
manure and plough land- the need for labourers decreased
 Threshing machines were introduced in 1800, and took over by
the mid-century, where steam power began to run machines
instead of horses: “the red tyrant that the women had come to serve-a timber-framed construction, with straps and wheels appertaining-the threshing-machine”(Chapter 47)
 Five men using handheld
sickles could only reap two
acres in an entire day, while
a machine could reap an
acre per hour (Seebohm 350)
Social Class
 Rural society was stratified in classes- in agriculture there were
‘liviers’ (lifeholders) who had a permanently secure freehold (the
lease could pass on to next generation). E.g Dairyman Crick. Other
labourers lived in ‘tied’ cottages: they had to leave when their
contracts ended (usually about a year).
 Tess and her family were working class and were downwardly
mobile, reflecting the decline of the agricultural sector
 Alec was part of the new landowning class, making use of the
economic boom after industrialisation: new money bought him
titles and land. (Upwardly mobile)
 Angel belonged to the professional middle class, although
ironically was training in farming, whist the Durbeyfield’s aspired
to the elite class
 Ruhl, Meredith. (2012). From Dabbling in the Curds to Feeding
the Machine: The Modernization of Agriculture inThomas Hardy's
Tess of the D'Urbervilles.
http://repository.wellesley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1035&context=thesiscollection&seiredir=1&refe
rer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3Dariculture%2Band%2Burba
nisat.
 crossref-it.info. Agricultural and social conditions
http://crossref-it.info/textguide/Tess-of-the-d'Urbervilles/11/1210