Agriculture in Scotland in the early modern era

As feudal distinctions declined in the early modern era, the barons and tenants-in-chief merged to form a new identifiable group, the lairds.

Marshes were drained, lime was put down, roads built, woods planted, drilling and sowing and crop rotation were introduced.

The resulting Lowland Clearances saw the eviction of hundreds of thousands of cottars and tenant farmers in central and southern Scotland.

[1] The early modern era saw the impact of the Little Ice Age, of colder and wetter weather, which peaked towards the end of the seventeenth century.

[4] One result was the abandonment of marginal land in the sixteenth century, as it became impossible to sustain agriculture, particularly in the uplands, but new settlements were created as a result of the opening up of hunting reserves like Ettrick Forest and less desirable low-lying land was also settled, often incorporating features into their names such as bog, marsh and muir.

As feudal distinctions declined, the barons and tenants-in-chief merged to form a new identifiable group, the lairds,[8] roughly equivalent to the English gentlemen.

[14] Below them were the cottars, who often shared rights to common pasture, occupied small portions of land and participated in joint farming as hired labour.

[14] 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.

[19] They usually ran downhill so that they included both wet and dry land, helping to offset some of the problems of extreme weather conditions.

However, there was some specialisation, with arable most important in the East and there was a tradition of sheep farming in the eastern Borders dating back to the arrival of new monastic orders in the twelfth century, which continued after the secularisation of the monasteries.

The English invasions of the 1640s had a profound impact on the Scottish economy, with the destruction of crops and the disruption of markets resulting in some of the most rapid price rises of the century.

[18] Three acts of parliament passed in 1695 allowed the consolidation of runrigs and the division of commonties and common pasture[27] and small scale enclosures began to be carried out.

[18] By the end of the century the drovers roads had become established, stretching down from the Highlands through south-west Scotland to north-east England.

[18] The closing decade of the seventeenth century saw the generally favourable economic conditions that had dominated since the Restoration come to an end.

[33] In the first half of the century these changes were limited to tenanted farms in East Lothian and the estates of a few enthusiasts, such as John Cockburn and Archibald Grant.

[18] The English plough, rye grass and clover, turnips and cabbages were introduced; lime was put down, marshes were drained, roads built and woods planted.

[34] There were also organisational changes that would have long term consequences, including the commutation of payments in kind for those in money, the granting of longer leases and the consolidation of smaller holdings.

Although some estate holders improved the quality of life of their displaced workers,[32] the Agricultural Revolution led directly to what is increasingly becoming known as the Lowland Clearances,[35] when hundreds of thousands of cottars and tenant farmers from central and southern Scotland were evicted from the farms and small holdings their families had occupied for hundreds of years.

Many small settlements were dismantled, their occupants moved either to the new purpose-built villages built by the landowners such as John Cockburn's Ormiston or Archibald Grant's Monymusk[36] on the outskirts of the new ranch-style farms, to the new industrial centres of Glasgow, Edinburgh, or northern England.