Robert Bakewell (agronomist)

Robert Bakewell, painting by John Boultbee

Robert Bakewell (born May 23, 1725 on the country estate Dishley Grange , Leicestershire , † October 1795 ) was a British farmer, who is now considered one of the most important figures of the British agricultural revolution.

Bakewell not only improved agricultural farming practices, but was widely recognized as the first person to practice systematic selection in ranching. His approach led to a significant improvement in sheep, cattle and horse breeds. Because of his success in raising cattle, contemporaries nicknamed him " The Great Improver ".

Life

Robert Bakewell was born the fifth son of Robert and Rebecca Bakewell. As a young man he traveled to Great Britain and then Europe to learn about other farming methods.

Bakewell took over the lease from Dishley Grange in 1760 after the death of his father. He supported his revolutionary breeding methods with numerous measures with which he improved the land he cultivated. This included improved irrigation methods for his pastures, which allowed a larger number of cattle to live on. He taught these methods to many local farmers and founded the Dishley Society in 1783 to represent the interests of ranchers. Among his supporters was Thomas William Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester , who adapted his methods. The latter also influenced the fact that the breeding methods of Bakewell were further developed after his death in 1795.

influence

Because of his success, Bakewell found imitators in aristocratic circles. Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester was among those who took up his methods

Bakewell was best known for his success in breeding horses, sheep and cows. At the time when he began to breed in a targeted manner, selective breeding, in which parent animals with outstanding characteristics were specifically reproduced, was still largely unknown. In his history of British sheep farming, Philip Walling calls the breeding that dominated before Bakewell the "union of nobody's son with everyone's daughter." Bakewell was self-confident enough to defy centuries of practice and also to dams with their sons, sires with theirs Mating daughters and siblings together to enhance desired traits. Such breeding methods are also used today. At the time Bakewell used them, however, they were a taboo violation. The biblical prohibition of incest was carried over to ranching and some of Bakewell's contemporaries accused him of immoral practices. It was only towards the end of the 18th century that such breeding practices became more widely accepted.

Bakewell was one of the first farmers to systematically lend breeding bulls and breeding rams to other farms for a sum of money. He was ridiculed for this practice at first and there were only a few other farmers who were willing to pay to employ foreign breeding animals on their farms if they had enough males themselves. Only with his clearly recognizable breeding successes did this practice prevail. In 1789, when a farm laborer earned 10 guineas in half a year , Bakewell received 3,000 guineas for the award of his rams. In autumn 1786 he was paid 400 guineas for his most valued breeding ram , the two- pounder , so that he could cover the sheep on another farm for a month. Bakewell's success as a breeder is also due to the fact that in summer he systematically visits the farms on which his breeding animals had previously mated in order to get an idea of ​​how well their offspring are doing on these farms. He also deliberately kept “control animals” in his herds, which did not come from his breeding, in order to use them to assess how much of the improvement in performance was due to the improvement in the keeping conditions.

Bakewell's improvements occurred at a time when, due to a gradually urbanizing population, there was an increasing demand for meat, which the races , which were primarily developed for subsistence farming , could no longer satisfy. Bakewell's fame was very great in his lifetime. The Russian prince Grigory Alexandrovich Potjomkin sought his advice on agricultural matters, the Russian tsarina Catherine the Great sent seven or eight young Russians to study on his farm with the aim of establishing an imperial farm. The Tsarina, however, lost interest in this model farm before it could be established.

The races he developed continued to evolve even after his death and there are few representations that give an impression of what the races he developed looked like at the time of his death.

Domestic sheep

Depiction of a Leicester ram from 1843. Bakewell had a great influence on the development of this breed.

Bakewell probably had the greatest influence on sheep farming. He mainly used regional breeds to develop large-framed sheep with long, shiny fleece over a relatively short period of time. He initially improved consisting Lincolnshire Wolds originating Lincoln sheep . He also used Lincoln sheep to further develop the Leicester sheep, one of the other long-wool breeds in Great Britain. He developed the so-called New Leicester sheep from the Leicester sheep , which is also occasionally called Dishley Leicester and from which, among other things, the Border Leicester was further developed. Before the breeding interventions, the Leicester sheep was considered to be a slow maturing sheep with a weak physique that was a poor feed processor. His breeding resulted in a hornless sheep with a straight back line and meat set that was not comparable to any other breed and reliably inherited its characteristics within a few decades. Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester was one of the first to keep Leicester sheep on his estate, and although he personally preferred the meat of old sheep breeds, he ran an ultimately successful campaign for decades to keep these old breeds on his property and throughout the world Abandon County Norfolk .

The sheep breeds improved by Bakewell were exported to other countries, including Australia and North America, in later decades. They have given rise to numerous modern breeds of sheep. The Texel sheep , which are mainly kept in Central and Eastern Europe, were crossed with Leicester and Lincoln sheep in particular in the middle of the 19th century. Leicester sheep were also crossed into the French Bleu du Maine . The Wensleydale sheep breed goes back to the crossing of a single, excellent Dishley Leicester ram with Teeswater sheep . In his history of British sheep breeding, Philip Walling assumes that there is no breed of sheep in the entire western world that does not also have the genetic makeup of the Leicester sheep improved by Bakewell.

Domestic cattle

English longhorn cow with calf

Just as Bakewell was one of the first to specifically select sheep for meat performance, he was also one of the first in Great Britain to specifically breed beef cattle. Typically, farmers kept dual or even three-purpose breeds . Cattle were kept in front of the plow and wagon not only because of their milk, but above all because of their pulling power. Their meat yield only played a subordinate role. Bakewell mated long-horned cows with a Westmoreland bull to finally breed the English Longhorn , also called Dishley Longhorn, which above all had an outstanding meat performance for the time. By 1700, the average weight of a bull was around 168 kilograms. By 1786 the weight had more than doubled and averaged 381 kilograms.

horse

Bakewell bred the Improved Black Cart horse , also called Bakewell Black , from which the Shire Horse was later bred.

Agricultural cultivation methods

Bakewell believed soil improvement was one of the most important jobs a farmer could do. Although he was only the tenant of his agricultural property, he had extensive ditches dug to ensure that his pastures were irrigated. He also used these moats to transport fodder on his estate. He was also one of the first to divide his pastures into smaller plots by means of thorn hedges and between which he let his grazing cattle rotate. These smaller pastures ensured that the respective pasture was better grazed by the cattle and that the grass grew back faster.

Bakewell and Charles Darwin

In his epoch-making work On the Origin of Species , which was first published in 1859 and is the fundamental work of evolutionary biology , Charles Darwin explicitly emphasizes the influence of Bakewell's breeding work on his theory of species development. The changes that Bakewell achieved in individual breeds demonstrate the range of possible variations in domesticated species.

New Dishley Society

The New Dishley Society was created to commemorate Robert Bakewell and the farmers of his time who took up and developed his methods. Society aims to maintain knowledge of his accomplishments and recognize his pioneering work in improving livestock and farming practices. The society supports the study of agricultural methods in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

literature

• Philip Walling: Counting Sheep - A Celebration of the Pastoral Heritage of Britain . Profile Books, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-84765-803-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Philip Walling: Counting Sheep . P. 43.
2. ↑ Philip Walling: Counting Sheep . P. 46
3. ↑ Philip Walling: Counting Sheep . P. 45
4. ↑ Philip Walling: Counting Sheep . P. 49.
5. ↑ Philip Walling: Counting Sheep . P. 53.
6. ↑ Philip Walling: Counting Sheep . P. 52.
7. ↑ Philip Walling: Counting Sheep . P. 44.
8. ↑ Philip Walling: Counting Sheep . P. 48.
9. ^ Robert Bakewell (1725-1795) . BBC History. Retrieved May 25, 2015.
10. ↑ Philip Walling: Counting Sheep . P. 46.
11. ↑ Philip Walling: Counting Sheep . P. 44.
12. ↑ Hans Hinrich Sambraus: Color atlas of farm animal breeds: 250 breeds in words and pictures , Eugen Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3800132192 , p. 112 and p. 133.
13. ↑ Philip Walling: Counting Sheep . P. 116.
14. ↑ Philip Walling: Counting Sheep . P. 46.
15. ↑ Swinney, Nicola Jane: Horse Breeds of the World . Globe Pequot, 2006, ISBN 1-59228-990-8 , p. 178.
16. ↑ Philip Walling: Counting Sheep . P. 51.
17. ↑ Philip Walling: Counting Sheep . P. 50.
18. ^ The New Dishley Society . Accessed May 25, 2015