In the analysis of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century agriculture, considerable use has been made of the dichotomy between heavy lands and light lands to explain changes in farming systems and agricultural productivity. The free-draining light lands had experienced marked agricultural progress both economically and technically from at least the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, founded on the adoption of a system of grain and livestock farming being integrated by the use of rotations which incorporated the growth of cereals and fodder crops, especially the turnip. It has generally been argued that the light-land mixed-farming systems based on turnip husbandry and high feeding made that sector of agriculture more dynamic, productive and prosperous than any other in the eighteenth century and for the greater part of the following century.

Agricultural systems on the clay-based heavy lands were much less advanced. Both the heaviness and moisture-retentiveness of such soils made them difficult to work, compressed the working season and rendered them unsuitable for the growth of fodder crops, especially turnips, for feeding stock through the winter. As a result, farming practices on heavy lands lacked the flexibility of those on light lands. On arable, rotations were dominated by wheat, oats or beans, and a bare fallow. Wheat was recognized as the main cash product and fallows persisted as a means of cleansing land after grain crops, being accepted as the penalty for the wheat crop. In grassland areas, meadow and pasture were strictly delimited and immune from the plough. Winter fodder came from meadow land, not fodder crops, and both the area of profitable summer grazing and the number of stock were restricted.