"Soil and Surface":  Digging up the Agricultural Tours of Wales 

Professor Mary-Ann Constantine takes a new look at the 'Welsh Tour' and considers how the picturesque and the practical collided in agricultural reports commissioned by the government in the 1790s.

These 'Statistical Surveys' were designed to improve economic productivity during a period of war and scarcity. Accounts of the journeys undertaken to collect information are fascinating historical documents - not least for what they tell us about moral and aesthetic responses to landscapes and the people who work them. Focused on Breconshire, this talk explores some of the stories behind the statistics.

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