The Seine watershed has long been the foodshed of Paris city. Nowadays, diffuse pollutions from agricultural land due to the use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and the concentration of animal husbandry, endanger drinking water resources and lead to costal eutrophication problems. In this study, we attempt to reconstruct a biogeochemical history of the ‘Beauce’ region, at the end of the nineteenth century, between large progressive agricultural domains (200 ha) and small familial farms (less than 10 ha). The agronomic and environmental performances of those systems are assessed using the soil surface balance method based on the analysis of data from historical production statistics and several aspects of rural life and agricultural practices detailed in the famous ‘naturalist’ novel, La Terre, by Emile Zola. Wheat farming had already increased with the replacement of the traditional fallowing practice by leguminous nitrogen-fixing hay recycled by the livestock which transferred this nitrogen to arable land via grazing and manure application. The results show that nitrogen fluxes were approximatively in balance in those mixed-farming systems, thus minimizing nitrogen environmental losses and ensuring good water quality. In the large landing estates, the reduction in the area under natural grasslands, to around 10 % of the agricultural land use, together with mechanization, allowed to increase the commercial potentiality of cereal export, reaching 1460 kgN/km2/yr, i.e. 98 % of the production. This allowed to sustain the food demand of the growing urban population of the Industrial Revolution.