Agricultural developments in 19th-century Hertfordshire and their rippling effects are researched, documented, and discussed in this compelling regional history. Radical changes in the agricultural economy led to rapid social reorganization; mechanization switched the labor of farming from groups of toiling male, female, and child workers to threshing machines and reaper-binders. Changes in land enclosure, the prevailing social hierarchy, village life, and the lack of trade unions amongst farm laborers that were necessitated by such dramatic changes in agriculture are thoroughly explored.