ABSTRACT
The implications of modified rotations, changing spatial relations, innovations in land management, and new implements and machines combined to engender substantial changes within the arable realm in the century from Waterloo to World War I. No less than 27 per cent of French arable land was being left fallow in the 1830s but there were profound regional variations associated with different rotations and the degree of acceptance of fodder crops (Duffoure-Bazin 1840). The land devoted to artificial meadows increased from 1 531 545 ha in 1837 to 2 948 810 ha in 1912 (up 93 per cent) in spite of a slight decline during the 1890s. From a rather modest starting position, the land under potatoes increased by 80 per cent between the 1830s and World War I, but the process was far from evenly spread through space and time.
