University of Lund.
Econ Hist Rev. 2011;64(1):1-29. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00526.x.
This article explores the proposition that a reason for high agricultural productivity in the early nineteenth century was relatively high energy availability from draught animals. The article is based on the collection of extensive new data indicating different trends in draught power availability and the efficiency of its use in different countries of Europe. This article shows that the proposition does not hold, and demonstrates that, although towards the end of the nineteenth century England had relatively high numbers of draught animals per agricultural worker, it also had low number of workers and animals per hectare, indicating the high efficiency of muscle power, rather than an abundance of such power. The higher efficiency was related to a specialization on less labour-intensive farming and a preference for horses over oxen.
本文探讨了一个观点，即 19 世纪早期农业生产力之所以高，一个原因是役畜提供了相对较高的能量。本文基于广泛收集的新数据，这些数据表明不同国家的役畜动力供应趋势和使用效率不同。本文表明，这一观点站不住脚，并证明尽管 19 世纪末英国每个农业工人拥有相对较多的役畜，但每个工人和动物的公顷数却很少，这表明肌肉力量的效率很高，而不是力量充足。更高的效率与劳动强度较低的农业专业化和对马的偏好有关，而不是对牛的偏好。
