History of agriculture in Scotland

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A barley field at Brotherstone Hill South in the Scottish Borders

The history of agriculture in Scotland includes all forms of farm production in the modern boundaries of Scotland, from the prehistoric era to the present day.

Scotland's good

hill forts in southern Scotland associated with cultivation ridges and terraces and the fertile plains were already densely exploited for agriculture. During the period of Roman occupation of Britain
there was re-growth of trees indicating a reduction in agriculture.

The

late Medieval period, most farming was based on the Lowland fermtoun or Highland baile. These were settlements of a handful of families that jointly farmed an area notionally suitable for two or three plough teams, organised in run rigs. Most ploughing was done with a heavy wooden plough with an iron coulter, pulled by oxen. The rural economy boomed in the thirteenth century and in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death
was still buoyant, but by the 1360s there was a severe falling off in incomes to be followed by a slow recovery in the fifteenth century.

As feudal distinctions declined in the

potato blight reached the Highlands
in 1846.

In the twentieth century Scottish agriculture became susceptible to world markets. There were dramatic price rises in the

Second World War. In 1947 annual price reviews were introduced in an attempt to stabilise the market. There was a drive in UK agriculture to greater production until the late 1970s, resulting in intensive farming and increasing mechanisation. The UK joined the European Economic Community in 1972. Some sectors became viable only with subsidies. A series of reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy
from the 1990s attempted to control over-production, limit incentives for intensive farming and mitigate environmental damage. A dual farm structure emerged with large commercial farms and small pluralised and diversified holdings.

Geography and climate

Main article: Geography of Scotland
Map of available land in early medieval Scotland.[1]

Scotland is roughly half the size by area of England and Wales, but has approximately the same amount of coastline. It has only between a fifth and a sixth of the amount of the arable or good

peat bog, the acidity of which, combined with high levels of wind and salt spray, made most of the western islands treeless. The existence of hills, mountains, quicksands and marshes made agriculture and internal communication difficult.[3]

Prehistory

Main article: Agriculture in prehistoric Scotland

At times during the last

Glaciers then scoured their way across most of Britain, and only after the ice retreated did Scotland again become habitable, around 9600 BCE.[4] Mesolithic hunter-gatherer encampments formed the first known settlements, and archaeologists have dated an encampment near Biggar to around 8500 BCE.[5] Numerous other sites found around Scotland build up a picture of highly mobile boat-using people making tools from bone, stone and antlers.[6] The oldest house for which there is evidence in Britain is the oval structure of wooden posts found at South Queensferry near the Firth of Forth, dating from the Mesolithic period, about 8240 BCE.[7]

The houses at Knap of Howar, demonstrating the beginning of settled agriculture in Scotland

In the Neolithic period, from around 6,000 years ago, there is evidence of permanent settlements and farming. This includes the well-preserved stone house at Knap of Howar on Papa Westray, dating from around 3500 BCE[8] and the village of similar houses at Skara Brae on West Mainland, Orkney from about 500 years later.[9] Evidence of prehistoric farming includes small plots of improved land, with simple stone boundaries. In Shetland these have been found under peat and on the mainland they are associated with cairnfields (piles of rocks that have been cleared from fields).[10] Archaeological evidence of pollen, pottery, settlements and human remains indicates that the two main sources of food were grain and cow milk, in a pattern that probably remained constant until the High Middle Ages.[11] There is also some limited evidence of the cultivation of flax from this period.[12]

From the beginning of the

hill forts were first introduced.[14] Some of these forts in southern Scotland are associated with cultivation ridges and terraces.[10] Over 400 souterrains, small underground constructions, have been discovered in Scotland, many of them in the south-east, and although few have been dated, those that have suggest a construction date in the second or third centuries CE. They are usually found close to settlements (whose timber frames are much less well-preserved) and may have been for storing perishable agricultural products.[15] Aerial photography reveals extensive prehistoric field systems that underlie existing boundaries in some Lowland areas, suggesting that the fertile plains were already densely exploited for agriculture.[10] During the period of Roman occupation of what is now northern England, and occasional advances into Southern Scotland, there was re-growth of birch, oak and hazel for five centuries, suggesting that the Roman invasions had a negative impact on the native population and the extent of agriculture.[13]

Middle Ages

Main article: Agriculture in Scotland in the Middle Ages
Threshing and pig feeding from a book of hours from the Workshop of the Master of James IV of Scotland (Flemish, c. 1541)

The early Middle Ages were a period of climate deterioration, with a drop in temperature and an increase in rainfall, resulting in more land becoming unproductive.

hunter-gathering. Limited archaeological evidence indicates that throughout Northern Britain farming was based around a single homestead or a small cluster of three or four homes, each probably containing a nuclear family, with kinship relationships likely to be common among neighbouring houses and settlements, reflecting the partition of land through inheritance.[17] The climate was more favourable for oats and barley than for corn.[18] The evidence of bones indicates that cattle were by far the most important domesticated animal, followed by pigs, sheep and goats, while domesticated fowl were very rare.[19]

In the period c. 1150 to 1300, the warm dry summers and less severe winters of the

manorial system, based on the English model, impracticable in some areas.[23] Obligations appear to have been limited to occasional labour service, seasonal renders of food, hospitality and money rents.[25]

The system of infield and outfield agriculture, a variation of open field farming widely used across Europe, may have been introduced with feudalism

ploughgate.[27] It may have measured about 104 acres (42 ha),[28] divided into four raths.[29]

Rig and furrow marks at Buchans Field, Wester Kittochside

By the late Medieval period, most farming was based on the Lowland fermtoun or Highland

cottars, who often shared rights to common pasture, occupied small portions of land and participated in joint farming as hired labour. Farms also might have grassmen, who had rights only to grazing.[32]

furrow and ridge, usually ran downhill so that they included both wet and dry land, helping to offset some of the problems of extreme weather conditions. Most ploughing was done with a heavy wooden plough with an iron coulter, pulled by oxen, which were more effective on heavy soils and cheaper to feed than horses. Obligations to the local lord usually included supplying oxen for ploughing the lord's land on an annual basis and the much resented obligation to grind corn at the lord's mill.[30] Key crops included kale (for both humans and animals), and hemp and flax for cloth production. Sheep and goats were probably the main sources of milk, while cattle were raised primarily for meat.[33] The rural economy appears to have boomed in the thirteenth century and in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death, probably the bubonic plague, which reached Scotland in 1349 and killed perhaps over a third of the population,[34] was still buoyant, but by the 1360s there was a severe falling off in incomes that can be seen in clerical benefices, of between a third and half compared with the beginning of the era, to be followed by a slow recovery in the fifteenth century.[35] Towards the end of the period average temperatures began to reduce again, with cooler and wetter conditions limiting the extent of arable agriculture, particularly in the Highlands.[20]

Early modern era

Main article: Agriculture in Scotland in the early modern era
A Scottish Lowland farm from John Slezer's Prospect of Dunfermline, published in the Theatrum Scotiae, 1693

While barons held increasingly nominal feudal tenures

yeomen, later characterised by Walter Scott as "bonnet lairds", often owning substantial land.[38] The practice of feuing (by which a tenant paid an entry sum and an annual feu duty, but could pass the land on to their heirs) meant that the number of people holding heritable possession of lands, which had previously been controlled by the church or nobility, expanded.[39] These and the lairds probably numbered about 10,000 by the seventeenth century[38] and became what the government defined as heritors, on whom the financial and legal burdens of local government increasingly fell.[40] Below the substantial landholders were those engaged in subsistence agriculture, who made up the majority of the working population.[41] Those with property rights included husbandmen, lesser landholders and free tenants.[32] By the early modern era in Lowland rural society, as in England, many young people, both male and female, left home to become domestic and agricultural servants.[42] Women acted as an important part of the workforce. Many unmarried women worked away from their families as farm servants and married women worked with their husbands around the farm, taking part in all the major agricultural tasks. They had a particular role as shearers in the harvest, forming most of the reaping team of the bandwin.[43]

A section of drover's road at Cotkerse near Blairlogie, Scotland

The early modern era also saw the impact of the

drovers roads, stretching down from the Highlands through south-west Scotland to north-east England, had become firmly established as routes for Highland cattle to reach English markets.[50] The closing decade of the seventeenth century saw the generally favourable economic conditions that had dominated since the Restoration come to an end. There was a slump in trade with the Baltic and France from 1689 to 1691, caused by French protectionism and changes in the Scottish cattle trade, followed by four years of failed harvests (1695, 1696 and 1698–99), known as the "seven ill years".[51] The result was severe famine and depopulation, particularly in the north.[52] The famines of the 1690s were seen as particularly severe, partly because famine had become relatively rare in the second half of the seventeenth century, with only one year of dearth (in 1674) and the shortages of the 1690s would be the last of their kind.[53]

Eighteenth century

Main article: Scottish Agricultural Revolution
Frontispiece from Transactions of the Society of Improvers (1743)

Increasing contacts with England after the

Union of 1707 led to a conscious attempt to improve agriculture among the gentry and nobility. The Society of Improvers was founded in 1723, including in its 300 members dukes, earls, lairds and landlords.[54] Haymaking was introduced along with the English plough and foreign grasses, the sowing of rye grass and clover. Turnips and cabbages were introduced, lime was put down to combat soil acidity, marshes were drained, roads built and woods planted. Drilling and sowing and crop rotation were introduced. The introduction of the potato to Scotland in 1739 greatly improved the diet of the peasantry. Enclosures began to displace the run rig system and free pasture, creating the landscape of largely rectangular fields that characterises the Lowlands today.[54] New farm buildings, often based on designs in patterns books, replaced the fermtoun and regional diversity was replaced with a standardisation of building forms. Smaller farms retained the linear outline of the longhouse, with dwelling house, barn and byre in a row, but in larger farms a three- or four-sided layout became common, separating the dwelling house from barns and servants quarters.[55]

Early improvement was carried out with the traditional tools, but new technology was increasingly important. Lighter ploughs were adopted, including from 1763 James Small's cast iron and curved mould board. It was first adopted in the south-east and spread to rest of the country in the 1770s. From 1788 Andrew Meikle's automated threshing mill speeded up a vital part of the harvesting process.[56] There was increasing regional specialisation. The Lothians became a major centre of grain, Ayrshire of cattle breading and the Borders of sheep.[54]

The result of these changes were the Lowland Clearances, by which hundreds of thousands of cottars and tenant farmers from central and southern Scotland were forcibly moved from the farms and small holdings their families had occupied for hundreds of years. Many small settlements were dismantled, their occupants forced either to the new purpose-built villages built by the landowners such as John Cockburn of Ormiston to house the displaced cottars on the outskirts of the new ranch-style farms, or to the new industrial centres of Glasgow, Edinburgh, or northern England. Tens of thousands of others emigrated to Canada or the United States, finding opportunities there to own and farm their own land.[54]

Nineteenth century

Main article: Highland Clearances
man guiding two horses pushing machine
An 1851 illustration showing the reaping machine developed by Patrick Bell

Improvement continued in the nineteenth century. Innovations included the first working reaping machine, developed by Patrick Bell in 1828. His rival James Smith turned to improving sub-soil drainage and developed a method of ploughing that could break up the subsoil barrier without disturbing the topsoil. Previously unworkable low-lying carselands could now be brought into arable production and the result was the even Lowland landscape that still predominates.[56]

While the Lowlands had seen widespread agricultural improvement, the Highlands remained very poor and traditional.[57][page needed] A handful of powerful families, typified by the dukes of Argyll, Atholl, Buccleuch, and Sutherland, owned enormous sections of Scotland and had extensive influence on political affairs (certainly up to 1885). As late as 1878, 68 families owned nearly half the land in Scotland.[58] Particularly after the end of the boom created by the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1790–1815), these landlords needed cash to maintain their position in London society. They turned to money rents and downplayed the traditional patriarchal relationship that had historically sustained the clans.

Skye

One result of these changes were the Highland Clearances, by which much of the population of the Highlands were evicted as lands were enclosed, principally so that they could be used for sheep farming. The clearances followed patterns of agricultural change throughout the UK.

potato blight that caused the Great Famine of Ireland reached the Highlands in 1846. Some 150,000 people whose food supply was mainly potatoes faced disaster. They were rescued by an effective emergency relief system that stands in contrast to the failures of relief in Ireland, but the danger of starvation remained into the 1850s.[63]

The unequal

Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 to reduce rents, guarantee fixity of tenure, and break up large estates to provide crofts for the homeless.[66] Explicit security was given for the Scottish smallholders; the legal right to bequeath tenancies to descendants and a Crofting Commission was created in 1886.[67]

Twentieth century to the present

Main article: Agriculture in Scotland
Grain harvest, Bridge of Earn, Perthshire

In the twentieth century Scottish agriculture became susceptible to the ups and downs of world markets. There were dramatic price rises in the First World War, but a slump in the 1920s and 1930s, in which perhaps 40 per cent of Scottish land changed hands, followed by more price rises in the Second World War. In 1947 annual price reviews were introduced in an attempt to stabilise the market. A series of Acts of Parliament followed, designed to give price support and grants to farmers. After the Second World War and the associated rationing, there was a drive in UK agriculture to greater production. This lasted until the late 1970s, resulting in more intensive farming. More areas of marginal land were brought into production with government subsidies. At the same time, the amount of forest was increased by a factor of three.[68] There was increasing mechanisation of Scottish agriculture. The horse was replaced by the tractor and the combine harvester. This meant that farming became less labour-intensive. In 1951, 88,000 people worked in Scottish agriculture full-time, but by 1991 it had fallen to about 25,000, leading to more depopulation of rural areas.[68] This helped make Scottish agriculture among the most efficient in Europe.[69]

In the 1960s and 1970s, 76–77 per cent of output by value was livestock farming and, although this has fallen to about 64 per cent since 1990, arable farming remains a minority of the sector and two-thirds of agricultural land is rough pasture. One result is that chemicalisation and arable-based subsidies have had less impact on Scottish biodiversity than is the case in England where farming is overwhelmingly arable.[70] The UK membership of the European Economic Community (later the European Union) in 1972 began a re-orientation for Scottish farming. A preference for Commonwealth markets was replaced by EU obligations. Agriculture became dominated by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU, which made farming dependent on market support and direct grants to farmers. As a result, some sectors, particularly hill sheep farming, became viable only with subsidies. Eight-four per cent of Scottish land qualified for extra support as a Less Favoured Area (LFA),[69] but 80 per cent of the payments were going to only 20 per cent of the farmers, mainly large commercial arable farms in the Lowlands. A series of reforms to the CAP from the 1990s attempted to control over-production, limit incentives for intensive farming and mitigate environmental damage.[71] As part of an attempt to mitigate the depopulation and commercialisation of Scottish farming, the Crofting Act of 1976 made it easier for crofters to buy their farms, but most were insufficient to support a family, and many small farmers turned to fish farming and tourism to supplement their incomes.[68] A dual farm structure has emerged with agriculture divided between large commercial farms and small pluralised and diversified holdings.[69] Scotland has the highest average farm size in the European Union, almost ten times the average.[69]

References

Notes

  1. ISBN 0-9503904-1-0
    .
  2. ISBN 0-521-47385-3
    , pp. 8–10.
  3. ISBN 0-19-210054-8
    , pp. 10–11.
  4. ISBN 0-00-712693-X
    , p. 99.
  5. ^ "Signs of Earliest Scots Unearthed". BBC News. 9 April 2009. Retrieved 15 July 2009.
  6. ISBN 0-7134-7530-7
    , p. 19.
  7. ^ R. Gray, "Bridge works uncover nation's oldest house", Herald Scotland, 18 November 2012, retrieved 7 December 2012.
  8. ISBN 1-904320-02-3
    , p. 19.
  9. ^ Pryor, Britain B.C., pp. 98–104 and 246–50.
  10. ^
    ISBN 0-19-211696-7
    , pp. 206–7.
  11. ISBN 0-19-211696-7
    , pp. 167–70.
  12. ISBN 1-85109-440-7
    , p. 25.
  13. ^
    ISBN 978-0-7486-3294-7
    , p. 34.
  14. ISBN 0-500-28795-3
    , p. 182.
  15. ISBN 0-7524-2517-X
    , pp. 77–110.
  16. ISBN 0-521-36291-1
    , p. 234.
  17. ISBN 0-7486-1234-3
    , pp. 17–20.
  18. ISBN 0-7509-2977-4
    , pp. 136–40.
  19. ISBN 0-7486-1736-1
    , p. 230.
  20. ^
    ISBN 0-7099-2385-6
    , p. 174.
  21. ISBN 0-7486-0104-X
    , p. 12.
  22. ISBN 0-415-12231-7
    , p. 97.
  23. ^
    ISBN 0-521-58602-X
    , pp. 16–19.
  24. ^
    ISBN 0-7486-0276-3
    , pp. 30–3.
  25. ISBN 0-521-41411-3
    , p. 586.
  26. ISBN 978-0-586-08248-5
    , p. 204.
  27. ^ Barrow, Kingship and Unity, pp. 12–15.
  28. ^ Barrow, Kingship and Unity, p. 15.
  29. ISBN 1-85182-890-7
    , p. 96.
  30. ^ a b Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community, pp. 41–55.
  31. ^ Barrow, Kingship and Unity, p. 18.
  32. ^
    ISBN 0-7486-0233-X
    , p. 82.
  33. ^ Koch, Celtic Culture, p. 26.
  34. ISBN 0-7524-3732-1
    .
  35. ISBN 0-631-21785-1
    , pp. 111–6.
  36. ^ Mitchison, Lordship to Patronage, p. 79.
  37. ISBN 0-85115-814-5
    , pp. 145–65.
  38. ^ a b Mitchison, Lordship to Patronage, p. 80.
  39. ISBN 0-7486-0276-3
    , pp. 51–2.
  40. ISBN 0-7486-1455-9
    , p. 331.
  41. ISBN 0-415-13041-7
    , p. 99.
  42. ISBN 0-521-89167-1
    , p. 52.
  43. ^ Mitcheson, Lordship to Patronage, pp. 86–8.
  44. ISBN 0-19-969305-6
    , pp. 542–3.
  45. ^ Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community, pp. 166–8.
  46. ISBN 0-691-02387-5
    , p. 472.
  47. ISBN 0-415-27880-5
    , pp. 291–3.
  48. ISBN 0-14-013649-5
    , pp. 226–9.
  49. ISBN 0-7190-4541-X
    , p. 17.
  50. ISBN 0-521-89088-8
    , p. 16.
  51. ^ Mitchison, A History of Scotland, pp. 291–2 and 301-2.
  52. ISBN 0-7486-3887-3
    .
  53. ^ Mitchison, A History of Scotland, pp. 254–5.
  54. ^
    ISBN 0-14-013649-5
    , pp. 288–91.
  55. ISBN 0-19-969305-6
    , pp. 321–3.
  56. ^
    ISBN 0-19-969305-6
    , pp. 321–3.
  57. ISBN 0-8371-8536-X
    .
  58. ISBN 0-7512-0278-9
    , p. 373.
  59. ISBN 1-84158-542-4
    , chapter 6.
  60. ISBN 0-19-820615-1
    , p. 229.
  61. ISBN 0-19-822281-5
    , p. 85.
  62. ISBN 1-898410-38-0
    , p. 159.
  63. ISBN 0-00-686141-5
    , pp. 12–14.
  64. ISBN 0-670-88811-7
    .
  65. ^ J. Hunter (1974), "The Emergence of the Crofting Community: The Religious Contribution 1798–1843", Scottish Studies, 18: 95–111.
  66. ^ I. Bradley (December 1987), "'Having and Holding': The Highland Land War of the 1880s", History Today, 37: 23–28.
  67. doi:10.1093/ehr/cei124
    .
  68. ^ a b c Koch, Celtic Culture, p. 27.
  69. ^
    ISBN 0-7486-1313-7
    , p. 87.
  70. ISBN 0-19-162433-0
    , p. 34.
  71. ISBN 0-7486-1313-7
    , p. 90.

Bibliography
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