| Abstract: | Infield-outfield farming in pre-eighteenth-century Scotland has been dismissed as a uniformly extensive, low-yield system of cultivation forming an adjunct to a basically pastoral economy and incapable of improvement and evolution. There are, however, grounds for believing that this model is over-generalized and reflects a lack of detailed studies of the primary sources. A particularly well-documented example of a midseventeenth century field system is available for the Dundas estates near Edinburgh. The evidence for this estate indicates that infield-outfield farming had evolved into a relatively intensive system in which animal husbandry played a minor role and which concentrated on grain production. The ways in which this system evolved are then considered and the implications in terms of a re-evaluation of the traditional model of the development of Scottish field systems are explored. |
