ABSTRACT
Every agricultural landscape is made up of individual farms, and it is the decisions of the owners, managers and workers of all those farms which result in the productive pattern that produces the cultivated landscape. The setting of fire to improve pasture is both old and widespread, and selection of plants, some to be encouraged, some to be destroyed by fire and other means, undoubtedly preceded the beginnings of agriculture proper. Throughout the Neolithic Age the diffusion of agriculture continued and settlements dated to as early as 2500 B.C. show that the grain and animal economy had extended to Ireland. About 800 b.c. the Greek polis or city settlement was developing, based on the improved agriculture possible with the use of iron. Subsistence agriculture satisfied the requirements of the cultivators, more or less, for food, drink and clothing.
