He was born, farmed, and died at Dishley, much like his father before him. But Robert Bakewell, unlike most people, caught the improving mentality, or attitude — the one thing all inventors, both then and now, have in common — which had him viewing everything around him in terms of its capacity for betterment. The improving mentality was a reframing the status quo as a problem to solve. A habit of optimisation. A compulsion to perfect.
very interesting account of breed improvement, along with management practices, way back in 18th century. what is very interesting is the tradeoff he made between stall fed and grazed animals. today happy cow, happy milk moves a lot of farmers to organic grazed management practice as in Aarhus.
Frankly, most of the fashionable trends in agriculture consist of undoing what Bakewell did, who was basically the forerunner of factory farming. Also things like creating breeds with an unnatural shape to maximize the amount of expensive cuts of meat.
By 1972, when doing fieldwork in Loughborough on a generous UMass scholarship, I asked a local headmaster how I could repay his staff's helpful kindness in my quest. "Buy them a steak dinner," he replied, "they don't see much meat anymore".
Fascinating. I wonder what brought about that change. Funnily enough, the French visitors were unimpressed with Loughborough itself, and only went there so as to visit Bakewell. They described it as being “ugly and badly built” and having “nothing in the least interesting to see apart from the coal dock" on the canal.
Thanks very much, and welcome to the newsletter! There is certainly something very compelling about reading about a very different society through the eyes of a particular person.
I found my copy pretty easily online. It’s Norman Scarfe, Innocent Espionage: The La Rochefoucauld Brothers’ Tour of England in 1785 (The Boydell Press, 1995)
Rather than an exemplum about the virtue of improvement, this is much more a cautionary tale about blind optimization according to reductionist economic standards. As other commenters note, these particular innovations had knock-on effects that degraded the agricultural environment and the meat's nutritional value.
Yes I think it’s important perhaps to note that improvement is in the eye of the improver! Another case being military innovation. But I think it’s still driven by the same impulses.
This is the way you get directionality in evolution and also problem solving in general: consistent application of "selective pressures" i.e. doing things step by step toward a defined goal. This is a great example.
very interesting account of breed improvement, along with management practices, way back in 18th century. what is very interesting is the tradeoff he made between stall fed and grazed animals. today happy cow, happy milk moves a lot of farmers to organic grazed management practice as in Aarhus.
keep it up
Frankly, most of the fashionable trends in agriculture consist of undoing what Bakewell did, who was basically the forerunner of factory farming. Also things like creating breeds with an unnatural shape to maximize the amount of expensive cuts of meat.
Fascinating. Thank you!
By 1972, when doing fieldwork in Loughborough on a generous UMass scholarship, I asked a local headmaster how I could repay his staff's helpful kindness in my quest. "Buy them a steak dinner," he replied, "they don't see much meat anymore".
Fascinating. I wonder what brought about that change. Funnily enough, the French visitors were unimpressed with Loughborough itself, and only went there so as to visit Bakewell. They described it as being “ugly and badly built” and having “nothing in the least interesting to see apart from the coal dock" on the canal.
Thank you very much for this excellent article - the first of your writings that I have stumbled across.
When it comes to 18th Century diaries I find myself continually reading and re-reading Casanova’s 12 volume l’Histoire de ma Vie.
Thank you once again.
Thanks very much, and welcome to the newsletter! There is certainly something very compelling about reading about a very different society through the eyes of a particular person.
Wonder how Bakewell would have gone about during the BSE catastrophe.
It’s an interesting question given such events probably did happen all the time, but probably without as many people noticing
Super interesting. Is the diary generally available in print?
I found my copy pretty easily online. It’s Norman Scarfe, Innocent Espionage: The La Rochefoucauld Brothers’ Tour of England in 1785 (The Boydell Press, 1995)
Rather than an exemplum about the virtue of improvement, this is much more a cautionary tale about blind optimization according to reductionist economic standards. As other commenters note, these particular innovations had knock-on effects that degraded the agricultural environment and the meat's nutritional value.
Yes I think it’s important perhaps to note that improvement is in the eye of the improver! Another case being military innovation. But I think it’s still driven by the same impulses.
This is the way you get directionality in evolution and also problem solving in general: consistent application of "selective pressures" i.e. doing things step by step toward a defined goal. This is a great example.