 Coke has been described as " the real hero of Norfolk agriculture " , despite the fact that his land was so poor one critic is said to have remarked that " the thin sandy soil must be ploughed by rabbits yoked to a pocket knife " . However , academics and writers dispute his importance . 19th and early 20th century historians held him to be the crucial figure of the British Agricultural Revolution , crediting him with inventing four @-@ crop rotation . Naomi Riches describes this as an " error " , and R.A.C. Parker , writing in the Economic History Review , states that " many of the innovations he is supposed to have introduced should be attributed to his predecessors in Norfolk " ; however that " is not to deny the substantial contribution of Coke himself to the advance of farming technique in England " . 
