Agriculture was
carried on in Europe, before the Industrial Revolution, in very much the same way as it is carried on in
Indian villages now. Each farmer owned a number of small strips of land, not joined together in one large plot but separated from each other by strips owned by other
farmers. In many ways, the farmers of Europe were worse off than the Indian farmers now, because they did not know that it was bad for their fields to sow the same crop on the same land year after year. They did not know that there are some plants which help to give back the lost nourishment to the soil and which are also useful for food either for animals or men. As a result of this ignorance, the soil became poorer and poorer and the crops became smaller and smaller.