“Before the eighteenth century, agriculture in Britain lurched from crisis to crisis. An academic named W. G. Hoskins calculated (in 1964) that between 1480 and 1700, one harvest in four was bad, and almost one in five was catastrophically bad. Now, thanks to the simple expedient of crop rotation, agriculture was able to settle into a continuous, more or less reliable prosperity. It was this long golden age that gave so much of the countryside the air of prosperous comeliness it enjoys still today, Bryson, Bill. At Home (p. 204). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Bryson, Bill. At Home (p. 204). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. ”