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Farming Practice in the Western Highlands and Islands before Crofting: A Study in Cultural Inertia or Opportunity Costs?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Robert A. Dodgshon
Robert A. Dodgshon
Affiliation:
Institute of Earth Studies, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Wales, UK.
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Extract

Farming in the western Highlands and Islands of Scotland was transformed over the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by the clearance of some townships to make way for commercial sheep production and the reorganisation of others into crofts. Commentaries on the region prior to these changes portray it as a cultural backwater, with communities employing a range of seemingly archaic and primitive practices. Early agricultural surveyors and ‘Improvers’ who visited or worked in the region were especially important in laying the foundation for this view. Admittedly, their near moral conviction about change and the virtues of new husbandry made them disdainful of traditional practice everywhere, even in the Lowlands. When it came to the western Highlands and Islands, though, their tone underwent a perceptible change, with words like primitive and barbaric creeping into their descriptions. Early travellers added to this picture of a region rooted in the past, with customs and practices that seemingly set it apart, chronologically as well as geographically, from the rest of Britain.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , October 1992 , pp. 173 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

Notes

1. Macculloch, J.R., The Western Highlands and Islands (London, 1824), III, 118.Google Scholar

2. National Library of Scotland (hereafter NLS), Map of Harris the Property of Alexander Hume, Surveyed by William Bald, 1804–5. Dunvegan Castle, MacLeod Papers, Section 1/466/2 Contents of the Mainland of Harris and the Adjacent Islands, 1772.

3. Scottish Record Office (hereafter SRO), AF49/2A, Valuation of the Estate of Ardnamurchan and Sunart, Property of Sir James Riddell, 1807 by Alex. Low of Woodend.

4. SRO, Forfeited Estates, E788/42 Report on the Estates of Barrisdale and Kinlochmoidart c.1755; E741 Report of the Contents Measures and Estimate Rents of the Annexed Estate of Barrisdale 1771, by William Morison.

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25. SRO RHP 8826/2, General Description of Tirii; SRP RH2/8/24, Blackadder's Description of Sky and North Uist 1799 and 1800; Dunvegan Castle, MacLeod of MacLeod Papers, 1/466/24 Description and Survey of Harris 1772; NSA, XIV (1845), 191 and 211.Google Scholar

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30. Examples are provided by NLS, Sutherland Papers, 313/1000, Expired Leases for Assynt, 1812.

31. Duncan Forbes of Culloden's Letter concerning the Duke of Argyll's Estates in Tiree, Morvern and Tiree, 24th Sept, 1737, reprinted in Crofter's Commission Reports (1884), appendix A, p. 392.Google Scholar

32. Inveraray Castle, Argyll Papers, V65, Instructions for the Chamberlain of Tyrie 23rd Oct.1750.

33. Inveraray Castle, Argyll Papers, V65, Remarks on the Island of Tirii 1771 [Probably by Alexander Campbell, Chamberlain of Kintyre]. p. 18.

34. SRO, Seaforth Papers, GD46/1/278 Articles of Sett for Lewis c.1790.

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38. Dunvegan Castle, MacLeod Papers, Section 2/8, Acts of Court April 29th, 1735, Conditions for Tacksmen.

39. OSA, X (1794), 356.Google Scholar

40. Inveraray Castle, Argyll Papers, Bundle 663, Instructions by His Grace the Duke of Argyll and Greenwich to Mr. Campbell of Airds factor of Morvern 17th Feb. 1733.

41. Inveraray Castle, Argyll Papers, V65 Instructions of the Chamberlain of Tyrie, 25th Oct. 1750. Forbes, , ‘Letter to the Duke of Argyll 1737’, p. 392Google Scholar also refers to the practice of graddaning.

42. Dunvegan Castle, MacLeod Papers, Section 2/8 Acts of Court April 29th, 1735, Conditions for Tacksmen.

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44. SRO, Mackenzie Papers, GD403/40/1–2, Meeting of Justices of the Peace for Skye, 1788.

45. Clan Donald Centre, Armadale House, Lord Macdonald Papers, GD221/4440/1, Observations on an Expedition to the Island of Skye 1799. See also, OSA, XVI (1795), 228.Google Scholar

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50. SRO, RHP8826/2, General Description of Tirii; Inveraray Castle, Argyll Papers, V65, Observations on Tirie by Minister McColl, 1788.

51. Clan Donald Centre, Armadale House, Lord Macdonald Papers, GD221/3695/5, Memorandum Anent Sir Alexr. Macdonald's Affairs 1739.

52. Clan Donald Centre, Armadale House, Lord Macdonald Papers, GD221/4284/12/2, Tack for Balranald and Pablesgarry, N. Uist, 1777.

53. OSA, X111 (1794), 304Google Scholar. These mills are further confirmed by GD403/2 Report of the Valuation of North Uist, 1813.

54. SirMurray, Alexander of Stanhope, ‘Anatomie of Ardnamurchan and Sunart, 1727’, in True Interest of Great Britain, Ireland and Our Plantations (London, 1740).Google Scholar

55. NLS, Sutherland Papers, Tacks 313/3161 Tacks of Assynt 1765–6.

56. Clan Donald Centre, Armadale House, Lord Macdonald Papers, GD221/3695/4, Memorandum of Abuses in the Present Management of Lord Macdonald's Estate, ca.1733.

57. Inveraray Castle, Argyll Papers, Bundles 1769–73, Tacks for Kintyre 1740–1780s.

58. Inveraray Castle, Argyll Papers, Bundle 663, Instructions by His Grace the Duke of Argyll, 1733.

59. SRO, RHP8826/2, General Description of Tirii; Inveraray Castle, Argyll Papers, V65, Remarks on the Island of Tirii, 1771.

60. SRO, Forfeited Estates, E729/1, Report from Captain John Forbes Factor Upon the Annexed Estates of Lovat and Cromarty, 1755; E746/151 General Report on Estate of Cromarty; Ibid., E746/79/9 Letters from Coigach. 1756–1782.

61. SRO, Forfeited Estates, E788/42. Report on the Estate of Barrisdale and Kinlochmoidart c.1755.

62. OSA, X (1794), 356.Google Scholar

63. SRO, RHP8826/2, General Description of Tirii.

64. Inveraray Castle, Argyll Papers, V65, Number of Inhabitants in the Island of Tirii with the Holding Sowing and Increase of Each Farm Nov. 1768 James Turnbull.

65. These figures can be compared with the estimate by Minister McColl who estimated that the quern consumed the annual labour of 100 women, see Inveraray Castle, Argyll Papers, V65, Observations on Tirie by Minister McColl Ardincaple July 4th, 1788.

66. NSA, XIV (1845), 350.Google Scholar

67. Macculloch, , Western Highlands, III, 210.Google Scholar

68. OSA, XIV (1795), 190.Google Scholar

69. NSA, XIV (1845) 283.Google Scholar

70. Inveraray Castle, Argyll Papers, V65, Remarks on the Island of Tirii 1771, pp. 19–20.

71. Clan Donald Centre, Armadale House, Lord Macdonald Papers, GD221/4440/1, Observations on an Expedition to the Island of Sky 1799.

72. See, for example, Walker's Report, p. 43Google Scholar; NSA, XIV (1845), 283.Google Scholar

73. Dunvegan Castle, Macleod of Macleod, Section 1/466/22, Contents of the Mainland of Harris and Adjacent Islands 1772; NLS, Map of Harris, the Property of Alexander Hume 1804–5.

74. OSA, X (1794), 352.Google Scholar

75. SRO, RHP72, Ardnamurchan and Sunart, the Property of Sir James Riddell, 1806, by William Bald; SRO, AF49/2A, Valuation of the Estate of Ardnamurchan and Sunart, Property of Sir James Riddell, 1807, by Alexander Low of Woodend. According to detailed data provided by Low, the townships of Tarbert, Glenmore, Tornamoany, Bourblaige, Mingary, Ormsaigbeg, Grigadale, Achateny, Kilmory and Sheilfoot in Ardnamurchan and Drimnatorrin, Upper Annyhalt, Ardnestang, Glasfern and Scotstown in Sunart all had high proportions of spaded land. Low describes spaded land as largely occurring in ‘small and detached pieces’. When we find a site like Glasfern described as ‘a rough hard Possession, some of it high rocky and barren’, we can hardly be surprised at the fact that all its 27.7 acres of arable were spaded.

76. See, for example, OSA, X111 (1794), 328.Google Scholar

77. Ibid., p.329.

78. A comparison between SRO, RHP72, Ardnamurchan and Sunart … 1806, by William Bald and SRO, AF49/2A, Valuation of the Estate of Ardnamurchan and Sunart 1807 enables those fields that were spaded to be distinguished from those that were ploughed. Generally speaking, it shows that peripheral fields were more likely to be spaded than ploughed. However, as explained on p. 183, the collapse of holding size could make it attractive to use spades and caschroms on fields anywhere within townships. Peripheral fields on the marginal site of Bourblaige, for instance, were mostly spaded, but we also find some of the better fields around the settlement itself also spaded, a fact possibly explained by Low's reference to the farm as ‘oppress'd with too many Tenants’.

79. A fine illustration of this point is provided by a township on Unish Moor, Vaternish, Skye, that appears to have been abandoned by the early seventeenth century. One or two fields have the broad gentle undulations of plough rigs, but there are no signs anywhere of the sharp, narrow rigs produced by the spade or caschrom. However, townships that lie a few miles further south - where dense settlement can be traced through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - are heavily corrugated by spade rigs.

80. Detailed figures are provided by SRO RHP8826/2, General Description of Tirii; SRO RH2/8/24, Blackadder's Description of Sky and North Uist 1799 and 1800; E7292/9/1 Journal of Archibald Menzies 1768; Dunvegan Castle, MacLeod Papers, Survey of Harris, 1772.

81. Ibid.

82. Walker's Report, p. 210.Google Scholar

83. Inveraray Castle, Argyll Papers, V65, Number of Inhabitants in the Island of Tirii with the Holding, Sowing and Increase of each Farm, 1768, James Turnbull; Ibid., V65, Contents of the Different Farms of the Island of Tirii By James Turnbull 1768

84. SRO RH2/8/24, Blackadder's Description of Sky and North Uist 1799 and 1800; OSA XIII (1794), 307.Google Scholar

85. Martin, , Description of the Western Islands, p. 3Google Scholar

86. Walker's Report, p. 210.Google Scholar

87. SRO, Forfeited Estates, E741, Barrisdale – Reports Concerning Farms 1771.

88. SRO, RHP2/8/24, Blackadder's Description of Sky and North Uist 1799 and 1800.

89. Darling, F., A West Highland Survey (Oxford, 1955), pp. 224–5.Google Scholar

90. Macculloch, , Western Highlands, III, 118.Google Scholar

91. Ibid., p. 209.

92. SRO RHP2/8/24, Blackadder Description of Sky and North Uist 1799 and 1800.

93. Martin, , Description of Western Islands, p. 3.Google Scholar

94. See, for example, ibid., pp. 54 and 140; Walker's Report, p. 211Google Scholar; OSA, XIV, 305.Google Scholar

95. According to Walker's Report, p. 172Google Scholar, the small size of holdings was the reason why so much land was spaded on Coll. See also comments by NSA, XIV (1845), 278.Google Scholar

96. SRO, Forfeited Estates, E729/9/1, Journal of Archibald Menzies, 1768, sheds some light on joint ploughing. Iona, he noted, had 9 ploughs with ‘two tenants about each plow’, whilst Luing used long plows with 4 horses in each plough and ‘4 Tenents to a Plow’.

97. SRO, Forfeited Estates, E788/42, Report on Barrisdale and Kinlochmoidart c.1755.