Agricultural History Review, Volume 65 Part 1 (2017), p. 154

Agricultural improvement tends to be associated with central, midland and southern England rather than the upland, pastoral north and west. Yet agricultural improvement in the uplands and moorlands was certainly important and I can think of no better guide to it than David Johnson, a man who has walked the rougher parts of the upland north in great detail over many years. He has mapped their limekilns. He has undertaken a series of excavations of sites on the limestones of Ingleborough and has shown that several of them belong to a previously unsuspected phase of settlement dating from the pre-Norman times. He is also familiar with a wide range of archives covering a large geographical area and temporal range from medieval monastic records to modern computer databases.

Beginning with the origins of improvement in the mid-sixteenth century, the book takes both thematic and chronological approaches to its subject matter: the agricultural development of the county up to the present day. The author also considers the construction of limekilns and the associated coal-mining industry which was linked to them. He then moves on to the use of lime in agriculture and to the issue of enclosure, challenging the idea of northern agriculture as static. The role of larger estates is examined and the changing fortunes of agriculture between 1850 and 1937. The author might perhaps have said more about the impact of improvements in roads, canals and railways, but otherwise this is a comprehensive study.

Overall, An improving prospect? is a substantial book on a little-known subject. Its only flaw is the black-and-white illustrations which have been printed very dark. The author describes the book in modest terms as a very substantial ‘work in progress’, but his achievement is really far more impressive and this book should become a standard work for agricultural historians of the north of England.