158 EXGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



subdivisions had been made. A hall-cenlury earlier nearly all 

 of Scotland, they say, lay open.* 



As a lucid description of the tillage of an open-field Scottish 

 farm, James Anderson's account, written with reference to Aber- 

 deenshire, cannot be excelled:^ — 



" Throughout the whole district," he writes, " the general 

 practice that has prevailed for time immemorial is to divide 

 the arable lands of each farm into two parts at least. Infield 

 and Outfield. The in-field, as the name implies, is that por- 

 tion of ground which is nearest to the farmstead; and usually 

 consists of about one-fifth part of the whole arable ground in 

 the farm. This is kept in perpetual tillage; and the invariable 

 system of management was, and still is, with few exceptions, to 

 have it divided into three equal parts to be cropped thus: First, 



' Cf. the following reports, each entitled General Vieu^ of the Agriculture of the 

 County [in question] : — 



Aberdeen, p. 40, " But if by commons be understood uninclosed fields [i. e., not 

 heath or waste] . . . then the greatest part of the county might be accounted 

 such "; p. 59, " The old com lands near Aberdeen . . . [are] for the most part 

 open and uninclosed." 



Soutliern Perth, p. 60: " Three-fifths at least of the whole arable land is 

 open . . . and on some farms no fence is made except a ring fence around the 

 whole." 



Argyll and West Inverness, p. 26: " There is but Httle of it [the countr>'] inclosed, 

 and that which is only by feal dykes; . . . the tenants, from want of sufficient 

 inclosures, cannot protect turnip and sov^^l grass and thereby have been discour- 

 aged ... to raise these articles." 



Annandale (co. Dumfries), app. iv, p. xxiii: " There was scarce an inclosed field 

 thirty years ago in Annandale, unless on the mains or manour place of a gentleman, 

 and thej' were not at all frequent. There was no such thing at a much later period 

 as a divided or inclosed farm, with any sort of fence, occupied by a farmer." 



Dumbarton, p. 19: " Till about thirty or forty years ago, none of the country was 

 inclosed, except a few fields adjoining to gentlemen's seats . . . [but] inclosing 

 has been daily going on. One-third of the county, however, is yet open, or but 

 roundly inclosed; that is, the farms are inclosed, but not subdivided." 



Berwick, p. 45: "Almost the whole or two-thirds, at least, of the lands of the 

 lower district, are now inclosed, and a considerable part of the arable lands of the 

 higher district." 



Orkney Isles, p. 252: " The land is almost wholly in open fields." 



Midlothian, p. 34: " Even so late as thirty years ago, there was hardly a farm 

 inclosed in the whole county." 



- General View of the Agriculture of the County of Aberdeen (Edinburgh, 1794), 

 pp. 54 sq. 



