The author and politician Rowland Edmund Prothero (1851 1937), an expert on British agricultural history, held the post of President of the Board of Agriculture in David Lloyd George's cabinet between 1916 and 1919. In 1885 he had written an article for the Quarterly Review in which he traced the progress of English agriculture since the middle ages. This was expanded into a book, published in 1888 as The Pioneers and Progress of English Farming. Then, in 1912, Prothero revised and greatly expanded it under its current title, bringing the story up to date. This classic work charts the...