SCOTTISH FARMING PAST AND PRESENT
| Date | 01 February 1959 |
| Published date | 01 February 1959 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9485.1959.tb00104.x |
SCOTTISH
FARMING
PAST
AND
PRESENT
THE
lack
of
a
standard text on the economic development of agricul-
ture in Scotland has been recognised for many years
as
a serious
deficiency in historical work in this country. The studies by Coulton,
Grant, Hamilton and MacDonald before the war, and the works
of
Franklin, Gray, Haldane, Handley and Saunders in recent years, have
all contributed towards our understanding of Scottish farming his-
tory, but no one has yet attempted a comprehensive account
of
the
industry’s economic development. The recent book by
J.
A. Symon,
Scottish Farming Past
and
Present,l
concentrates on the
‘
practical
’
aspects of the subject, but it
is
the most serious attempt yet made
to
write a general history and its title inevitably prompts one to expect
a book along the lines of Ernle’s classic,
English Farming Past
and
Pre3ent.
The teacher and student will find Mr. Symon’s work a valuable text
in which good use is made of most of the important printed sources.
The author, a retired official of the Department
of
Agriculture for
Scotland, has been closely connected with Scottish farming for many
years and writes lucidly about everything from early Celtic farming
to modern agricultural practices. The book is virtually in two parts;
the first part, of
285
pages, gives a chronological history of Scottish
farming from pre-historic times till 1954; the second part,
of
149 pages,
consists of a series of chapters on various topics, including livestock,
grassland, farm implements and the co-operative movement. The
Highlands are discussed in
two
special chapters in the chronological
part
of
the book, and there are very useful appendices, including a
chronological list
of
books down to 1850 and
a
list of the principIe
Acts of Parliament affecting agricuIture from 1214 to 1947.
The limitations of the book arise partly from the initial decision
to concentrate on the
‘
practical
’
aspects of agricultural history and
partly from the absence
of
any sustained attempt to fill some of the
main gaps in our knowledge and understanding
of
the subject.
General problems
of
social and economic development are rarely
stated and never discussed in a systematic way, while the basic ap-
proach has been to rearrange and rewrite the known history rather
than to discover new evidence or reinterpret the old.
For the economic historian Scottish agricultui) during the period
1600 to 1875 provides innumerable interesting problems,
a
wealth
J.
A.
Symori,
Scottish
Farming Past and Present
(Oliver
and
Boyd, 1959,
425.)
77
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