Farm Touns

At the beginning of the 18th Century, Scotland was populated and farmed in a manner little changed since medieval times. Rather than being organised around a nucleus like English villages, in the Scottish landscape people lived in smaller scattered settlements referred to as ‘ferm touns’. There was a tendency for families to hold tenancies jointly and many aspects of agricultural labour were carried out collectively. Land was divided into ‘infield’ which was the better land situated immediately around the habitation and the ‘outfield’ which lay further away. The infield was intensively cultivated and manured, never allowed to rest and often grew the same crop year after year. The outfield was sporadically used for crops but mainly used for animal grazing. The crops grown were limited, with oats providing the staple food for the family.

The Runrig system

The fields were divided into numerous narrow strips, each consisting of ridges of cultivated land - rigs - around 30 feet wide, separated from one another by ditches that were supposed to be drains, but were usually choked with reeds, briars, nettles, stones and marsh plants.

The land was rented from the local landowner and usually paid for in kind, including an obligation to work – harvesting or planting - for the landowner as and when required. It was re-allocated each year, by lot or by auction. Each alternate rig had a different tenant - most would rent a number of rigs but it was unusual for a farmer to have two or more rigs alongside each other. These strips were curved into a sort of S shape because of the need for turning space for the teams of oxen pulling the heavy, wooden old Scots Plough. Because of the shortness of the lease, there was no incentive for a farmer to improve the strip of land he rented in any one year.

It was said that, with such an inefficient system, when the crop failed in a bad season, the people would be “in destitution and despair. This helplessness fostered in them a sense of awe and a dependence on Providence, which gave a peculiar power to the ministers”.

	Grazing		Marshland Farmhouse Riggs Steep Slope Boundary
Making Improvements The plan below shows the same area as the plan describing the Runrig system, but this time a number of rigs have switched to the new system and part of the marshland has been drained.
			Marshland Farmhouse Riggs Steep Slope Boundary between the new farms New Fields New fields being laid out

Fundamental to the new approach to agriculture was the division of the landscape into enclosed fields. Where stones were plentiful, dry stone dykes were built; elsewhere hedges were grown to create barriers that stopped livestock straying. Among the advantages this presented was the fact that crops could be grown and animals reared in close proximity to one another. A wider range of crops was grown and land periodically allowed to rest in order to recover fertility. The new farms were organised around a farmhouse with buildings to accommodate animals and store harvested crops. These farms were leased to tenant farmers with farm servants whom they employed. Fewer people were now needed to farm the land. This process of change in rural society had started to take place in England many years before. From there it spread up the east coast of Scotland before gathering momentum in Perthshire and elsewhere. Once started, these changes were completed in a remarkably short time – in Perthshire “within the space of twenty years [at the end of the 18^th Century], lands had been transformed into regular farms and the fields now largely enclosed. At Scone “it appears from those rough grounds and moorlands which within a few years have been converted into beautiful and fertile cornfields, that modern husbandry is well understood by the farmers.”

Some Implications of the Agricultural Revolution

The increased movements of fertiliser, machinery and harvested crops meant that the road system had to be improved dramatically. Before the improvements there were very few roads, only poor tracks. As the demand for roads grew, many of the new landless labourers found employment building and maintaining new roads. A number of Scots made their fame and fortune from this endeavour, two notable examples being Thomas Telford and John MacAdam. The increased interest in the land also resulted in a rush of new inventions to increase productivity, such as lighter ploughs, reapers and threshers. With lighter ploughs came another change - oxen were replaced by sturdy horses, which were easier to handle and required fewer men to form a plough team. As a result, demand for manpower in the countryside fell. Families began to migrate to the developing manufacturing industries of the nearby towns and cities. In the countryside, mobile, unmarried labourers were able to undercut the going rate for employment at the expense of married men. As it became more economical for farmers to employ unmarried servants who lived in farm outbuildings, so the traditional cottar families and their dwellings started to disappear. In some areas, where fewer tenants were needed to run larger farms, entire villages disappeared. By the end of the century, land values had more than doubled as a result of the revolution: land near Perth that was let at 5/- per acre in 1750 fetched 50/- by 1790. Wages also rose, but only by 50% or so. Meanwhile, price inflation – food prices more than doubled - meant that many a working family would have been living at barely subsistence level.

In many places, including Kinnoull parish, leases were deliberately kept short so that rents might be more readily raised; tenants could also be more easily removed if they failed to improve the farm in the way the landowner desired.