CHAPTER V 



The Celtic System 



Before examining the field arrangements of the north and the 

 west of England, we shall do well to glance across the border to 

 see what method of cultivation was employed by peoples of 

 Celtic descent. Phenomena otherwise perplexing may thereby 

 become intelligible. 



Of the three Celtic divisions of the British Isles, Scotland fur- 

 nishes perhaps the most specific information as to how the soil 

 was tilled in the eighteenth century. Among the Scottish re- 

 porters to the Board of Agriculture in 1794 were two or three men 

 whose habits of thought led them to go beyond the formal answer 

 to the queries propounded and write scholarly accounts of the 

 situation, past and present. If to their descriptions be added 

 the briefer notes of the other reporters, the composite picture 

 leaves little that is vague about the later history of the Celtic 

 system in Scotland. In particular it makes clear the nature of 

 runrig, the relation of which to the three-field system of England 

 has never been well set forth. ^ 



A striking feature of Scottish agriculture before 1794, and one 

 upon which the reports are practically unanimous, is that most 

 of the arable, as well as the meadow and pasture, lay unenclosed. 

 Near gentlemen's seats only were enclosures to be seen. While 

 the reporters wrote, the process of enclosing was making headway, 

 especially in the southeast; and often matters had got to a point 

 where a ring fence had been built about the farm, although no 



1 Slater has a chapter on the subject, and quotes at length Alexander Carmi- 

 chael's description of the Hebrides {English Peasantry, ch. xv). He has not 

 utilized the best information contained in the reports to the Board of Agriculture, 

 nor is his contrast of runrig with English common fields adequate (cf. below, pp. 

 1 71-17 2). Seebohm had apparently not read the reports. 



IS7 



