Inghilterra - Changes in agriculture and Enclosure Acts

The great changes made in agriculture were the introduction of new methods of drainage, such as the use of fertilizers and crop rotation; the introduction of new agricultural machinery, such as the threshing machine and the wheeled plough. The landowning aristocracy agreed the new discoveries; they showed a sense of enterprise. Measures of great importance for agriculture were the Enclosure Acts, a series of acts of Parliament allowing landowners to fence off their holdings and carry out experiments on own land. They harmed the landless poor (who used to collect wood or graze animals on the common land) and drove some small free holders off to the towns. All these innovations required financial support, so people with money to invest became important in economic life. At first the conditions of working people in the new factories were inhuman, and then their situation slowly improved Adam Smith in his the Wealth of Nations said that the State was not to interfere with economic activity.