Agricultural Improvement Quotes

“This book attempts to evaluate the roles of the traditional landowners (whose reckless lifestyles led to bankruptcy and the acquisition of their lands by commercially-minded entrepreneurs); the new breed of accountant trustees (for whom financial probity was paramount); the Highland Potato Famine; James Cheyne, the clearing landlord; events elsewhere on Lismore, particularly on the Baleveolan estate, factored by Allan MacDougall; the influence of the Lismore Agricultural Society; investment in infrastructure on the Airds estate; the differing fates of farmers and cottars; the lack of alternative employment for the young; and opportunites elsewhere, particularly in the Central Belt of Scotland.”
― Robert Hay, How an Island Lost its People: Improvement, Clearance and Resettlement on Lismore, 1830 - 1914

“The physical reclamation of the floodplain of the Spey involved a hugely ambitious series of localised engineering projects, surely equal to any undertaking in lowland Britain - perhaps more so considering the region's remoteness and economic difficulties.

...Around 40 miles of banks were constructed over five decades, reclaiming some 4,000 acres of the most fertile land in Badenoch, dramatically increasing the region's pastoral and arable yields to the benefit of all. Many of these floodbanks still protect the riverside fields, a monument not just to the ideology of Enlightenment and improvement, but to the vision and labour of all involved - lairds, tacksmen, tenants and labourers. Ironically, the huge Invereshie reclamation scheme, the great drain and riverbanks, are now - in response to a new ideological vision being re-converted into wetlands, the Invereshie Meadows reverting to the Insh Marshes.”
― David Taylor, 'The People Are Not There': The Transformation of Badenoch 1800 - 1863