| 1. |
- Larsson, Jesper
(författare)
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Boundaries and property rights: The transformation of a common-pool resource
- 2014
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Ingår i: Agricultural History Review. - 0002-1490. ; 62, s. 40-60
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article examines how a common-property regime evolved within the context of property rights reforms, using empirical data from a Swedish parish over three centuries, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth. By adopting a transaction-cost approach, I argue that the standard depiction of how collective rights were transformed into individual rights has been oversimplified. One of the features that made the common-property regime successful was the interplay between de jure and de facto property rights. The land consolidation reforms of the early nineteenth century were costly for almost all landowners in the region, and required the adaptation of a well-established common-property regime to individually owned forestland.
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| 2. |
- Uppenberg, Carolina
(författare)
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Masters writing the rules: how peasant farmer MPs in the Swedish Estate Diet understood servants’ labour and the labour laws, 1823–1863
- 2020
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Ingår i: Agricultural History Review. - 0002-1490. ; 68:2, s. 238-256
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Peasant farmers made up one of the four estates in the Swedish parliament, the Diet of the four estates, from late medieval times up until the introduction of the two-chamber parliament in 1867. Affiliation to the estate of the peasant farmers was based on landholding. Landholding also entitled peasant farmers to employ servants. Peasant farmers thus played a double role: as masters of servants and as lawmakers of the Servant Acts that regulated the relationship between masters and servants. In this article, minutes from the peasant farmers’ estate are analysed to understand their position on servants and servants’ labour, through a study of debates concerning compulsory service, hiring date, treatment of sick servants, and chastisement of servants. The results challenge the dominant interpretation of rural servanthood being part of the life-cycle by showing how peasant farmers identified antagonistic class differences between themselves and their servants.
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| 3. |
- Bengtsson, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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The living standards of the labouring classes in Sweden, 1750–1900: Evidence from rural probate inventories
- 2022
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Ingår i: Agricultural History Review. - 0002-1490. ; 70:1, s. 49-69
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present new estimates of the living standards among the rural labouring classes in Sweden from 1750 to 1900. Starting with a database of more than 1,000 probate inventories of rural, landless and semi-landless people from the years 1750, 1800, 1850 and 1900, we study the development for crofters in particular. In a sub-sample of 120 probate inventories we map in great detail the material items of the crofter households, focusing especially on two categories: the means of production (animals and agricultural tools) and consumption goods. The crofters held over time fewer means of production but more consumption goods: glass, porcelain, mirrors, and clocks become more common. However, the decrease in means of production indicates a greater dependence on wage labour, rising land prices made it more difficult to become a farmer, and housing standards stayed poor. The study shows the usefulness of probate inventories to study labouring people’s living standards.
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| 4. |
- Bergenfeldt, Fredrik, et al.
(författare)
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Wagons at Work: A Transport Revolution from Below – the Case of Sweden, 1750-1850
- 2013
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Ingår i: Agricultural History Review. - 0002-1490. ; 61:1, s. 63-82
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The introduction of turnpike trusts has been considered to be an integral part of the rapid decline in transport costs in England. Institutional change in the transport system or the lack thereof has been used to explain if and when a transport revolution occurred in different localities. However, improved roads are just one component of declining inland transport costs. In this paper, we specifically analyse how the transport means on roads (i.e., animal carts and wagons) developed in the absence of major institutional changes to the road system. We use Scania, a province located in southernmost Sweden, during the period 1750–1850 as a case study of the development of transport means during the transformation from a rural economy to an emerging industrial one. Our main finding is the independent role of individuals in lowering their own transport costs, as demonstrated by the notably large increase in the value of wagons relative to other commodities and by the increasing share of wagons equipped with iron wheels instead of wooden wheels and with iron axles instead of wooden axles. This finding indicates that it was possible to lower transport costs in preindustrial Europe without an institutional change of the road system.
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| 5. |
- Bohman, Magnus, 1980-
(författare)
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The road to modern forestry : dealing with deforestation in nineteenth-century southern Sweden
- 2018
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Ingår i: Agricultural History Review. - : The British Agricultural History Society. - 0002-1490. ; 66:2, s. 199-214
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Previous research has connected progressive deforestation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with an increase in the demand for timber for building and wood for fuel and a failure to replant. This paper investigates a southern Swedish region during the nineteenth century, where a tendency to deforestation and a low standard of forestry had prevailed for a long time despite restrictions on felling and attempts to promote replanting. We show that a new type of agricultural organization – the Hushållningssällskapet – encouraged the replanting of woodland and the improvement of forestry practice. It supported the enforcement of State policy, but also protected the interests of farmers, not all of whom were persuaded that replanting woodland was a good use of their land. The paper provides new evidence for the state of forestry and the active role of agricultural organizations during a crucial period of agricultural transformation.
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| 6. |
- Edvinsson, Rodney, 1971-
(författare)
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Harvests and grain prices in Sweden 1665-1870
- 2012
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Ingår i: Agricultural History Review. - 0002-1490. ; 60, s. 1-18
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper investigates the impact of harvests and international markets on Swedish grain prices, 1665-1870. The paper finds that harvests at a national level had a greater impact on domestic grain prices than international grain prices. However, at a regional level, grain prices tended to be affected more by harvests outside the region. Furthermore, in the long term, foreign prices became a more important determinant of national grain prices. The conclusion is that, under certain circumstances, grain prices can be used as an indicator of harvest fluctuations and to construct historical national accounts, at least at a sufficiently aggregated level. Such an endeavour needs to be combined with a careful analysis of the impact of prices in the surrounding area.
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| 7. |
- Hallberg, Erik, 1974, et al.
(författare)
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Sweden's agricultural revolution reassessed: A reconstruction of arable land and food production in 1810 and 1870
- 2022
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Ingår i: Agricultural History Review. - 0002-1490. ; 70:1, s. 70-95
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article presents the main results from the project Arable Land in Sweden. By examining some 9,400 cadastral maps, the acreages of arable land for the years 1810 and 1870 have been reconstructed. The calculations have thereafter been combined with other data in order to estimate agricultural production these years. As a result of the project, researchers have for the first time accurate data to quantify developments during the agricultural revolution. Surprisingly, Sweden had less arable land in the beginning of the nineteenth century than researchers have come to believe. Also, the acreage of arable land in 1870 must be adjusted downwards, but not as much. Land reclamation was thus faster than expected and firmly exceeded population growth. In addition, the data show that the expansion of the arable went hand-in-hand with increased productivity, surmounting the pitfalls of diminishing returns. In a concluding part, a partially new interpretation of Sweden's agricultural revolution is put forward.
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| 8. |
- Lundin, Per, 1971
(författare)
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The limits of academization: agricultural policy and the shaping of Swedish higher agricultural education during the interwar and war years
- 2023
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Ingår i: Agricultural History Review. - 0002-1490. ; 71:2, s. 234-257
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article examines the shaping of agricultural higher education in Sweden during the interwar and war years. More specifically, it conveys the conflicting views on the training of agronomists expressed in discussions that informed the 1932 decision to establish the Agricultural University College and, later, the shaping of the agricultural degree curriculum. It demonstrates that agricultural policy had a decisive influence on the outcome. Of particular importance was the smallholding policy; a set of government measures that emerged around the turn of the twentieth century, aimed at improving conditions for smallholders. Its advocates acknowledged the critical role of agronomists in enlightening, educating and advising smallholders. A modernization of agriculture that centred on small-scale farming, they argued, needed agronomists with a practice-orientated and all-round training. Thus, they successfully checked the attempts to introduce a science-orientated and university-like instruction in agricultural higher education. When it came to training agronomists, academization had its limits.
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