We associate the economic growth of the nineteenth century with cotton, iron, and steam, but the working-class standard of living rose mainly from the cheaper food that came from increased agricultural productivity and imports. Woods’ short book explores the development of the systematic breeding of sheep and cattle that increased British meat production as population growth and urbanization dramatically increased demand in the late eighteenth century. Later, the knowledge of animal breeding and the animals themselves established herds in Australasia and North America that greatly augmented meat supplies.
By the seventeenth century, British farmers raised a large number of noticeably different types of sheep and cattle, each usually associated with ecological regions—of which Britian has an abundance relative to is size. With the spread of enclosure and mixed farming, interest in breeding improved animals took hold. The major challenge for breeders was the reliable transmission of desirable traits from selected...