ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on attention on the farmer. In writings on agricultural history, farmers are so often the bridesmaid and so rarely the bride. Their role in the capitalist agriculture that emerged in England in the eighteenth-century is well understood. Sometimes they owned the land they farmed, but more usually they rented it from a landlord who used the farmer to distance himself from the day-to-day business of cultivation. The current definition of farmer as one who One who cultivates a farm, whether as tenant or owner; one who "farms" land, or makes agriculture his occupation' is familiar from the late sixteenth century onwards. The word farmer' as an occupational designation was virtually unknown before the Civil War and really only entered common usage after the beginning of the nineteenth century.
