Working with prestigious archives of contemporary photographs, the authors chart the history of Britain''s farming heritage with 120 rarely seen photographs. Nearly eleven thousand years ago humans moved away from hunting and gathering and began to raise livestock and plant crops. Our nostalgia for the way the countryside had been is an enduring passion. Ultimately mechanization began to replace more traditional forms of farming, and the Industrial Revolution was drawing more and more people away from the fields. Photography emerged at a crucial time when farming tasks could be done with a speed and on a scale previously unimaginable. Farming history has been driven by experimentation, innovation, and invention. The 19th century was one of those times marked by such change. This book looks at that pivotal period in history after which the British countryside would never be the same.