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The history of agriculture in Scotland includes all forms of farm production in the modern boundaries of Scotland, from the prehistoric era to the present day. Scotland has between a fifth and a sixth of the arable or good pastoral land of England and Wales, mostly in the south and east. Heavy rainfall encouraged the spread of acidic blanket peat bog, which with wind and salt spray, made most of the western islands treeless. Hills, mountains, quicksands and marshes made internal communication and agriculture difficult. In the Neolithic period, from around 6,000 years ago, there is evidence of permanent settlements and farming. The two main sources of food were grain and cow's milk. From the Bronze Age, arable land spread at the expense of forest. From the Iron Age, hill forts in southern Scotland are associated with cultivation ridges and terraces. Souterrains, small underground constructions, may have been for storing perishable agricultural products. Extensive prehistoric field systems underlie existing boundaries in some Lowland areas, suggesting that the fertile plains were already densely exploited for agriculture. During the period of Roman occupation of Britain there was re-growth of birch, oak and hazel indicating a reduction in agriculture. The early Middle Ages were a period of climate deterioration resulting in more unproductive land. Most farms had to produce a self-sufficient diet, supplemented by hunter-gathering. They ware based around a single homestead or a small cluster of homes, each probably containing a nuclear family. More oats and barley were grown than corn, and cattle were the most important domesticated animal. From c. 1150 to 1300, warm dry summers and less severe winters allowed cultivation at greater heights and made land more productive. The system of infield and outfield agriculture may have been introduced with feudalism from the twelfth century. Crops were bere, oats, wheat, rye and legumes. By the late Medieval period, most farming was based on the Lowland fermtoun or Highland baile. These were settlements of a handful of families that jointly farmed an area notionally suitable for two or three plough teams. These were organised in run rigs, usually running downhill so that they included both wet and dry land. Most ploughing was done with a heavy wooden plough with an iron coulter, pulled by oxen. Key crops included kale, hemp and flax. Sheep and goats were probably the main sources of milk, while cattle were raised for meat. The rural economy boomed in the thirteenth century and in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death was still buoyant, but by the 1360s there was a severe falling off in incomes to be followed by a slow recovery in the fifteenth century. As feudal distinctions declined in the early modern era, the barons and tenants-in-chief merged to form a new identifiable group, the lairds. With the yeomen, these heritors were the major landholding orders. Others with property rights included husbandmen and free tenants. Many young people left home to become domestic and agricultural servants. The early modern era also saw the impact of the Little Ice Age, which peaked towards the end of the seventeenth century. Almost half the years in the second half of the sixteenth century seeing local or national scarcity, necessitating the shipping of large quantities of grain from the Baltic. In the early seventeenth century famine was relatively common. Under the Commonwealth, the country was relatively highly taxed, but gained access to English markets. After the Restoration customs duties with England were re-established. Economic conditions were generally favourable, as landowners promoted better tillage and cattle-raising. The closing decade of the seventeenth century saw a slump, followed the failed harvests of the "seven ill years", but these shortages would be the last of their kind. After the Union of 1707 there was a conscious attempt to improve agriculture among the gentry and nobility. Introductions included haymaking, the English plough, foreign grasses, rye grass and clover, turnips and cabbages. Lands were enclosed, displacing the run rig system and free pasture. Marshes were drained, lime was put down, roads built, woods planted, drilling and sowing and crop rotation were introduced. The introduction of the potato to Scotland in 1739 greatly improved the diet of the peasantry. The resulting Lowland Clearances saw hundreds of thousands of cottars and tenant farmers from central and southern Scotland forcibly removed. The later Highland Clearances saw the displacement of much of the population of the Highlands as lands were enclosed for sheep farming. Those that remained many were now crofters, living on very small, rented farms with indefinite tenure, dependent on kelping, fishing, spinning of linen and military service. Scotland suffered its last major subsistence crisis when the potato blight reached the Highlands in 1846. In the twentieth century Scottish agriculture became susceptible to world markets. There were dramatic price rises in the First World War, but a slump in the 1920s and 1930s, followed by more rises in the Second World War. In 1947 annual price reviews were introduced in an attempt to stabilise the market. There was a drive in UK agriculture to greater production until the late 1970s, resulting in intensive farming. There was increasing mechanisation and farming became less labour-intensive. UK membership of the European Economic Community from 1972 began a change in orientation for Scottish farming. Some sectors became viable only with subsidies. A series of reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy from the 1990s attempted to control over-production, limit incentives for intensive farming and mitigate environmental damage. A dual farm structure emerged with large commercial farms and small pluralised and diversified holdings. ==Land and climate== (詳細はpastoral land, under 60 metres above sea level, and most of this is located in the south and east. This made marginal pastoral farming and fishing, the key factors in the pre-modern economy.〔E. Gemmill and N. J. Mayhew, ''Changing Values in Medieval Scotland: a Study of Prices, Money, and Weights and Measures'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), ISBN 0521473853, pp. 8–10.〕 Its east Atlantic position means that it has very heavy rainfall: today about 700 cm per year in the east and over 1,000 cm in the west. This encouraged the spread of blanket peat bog, the acidity of which, combined with high level of wind and salt spray, made most of the western islands treeless. The existence of hills, mountains, quicksands and marshes made agriculture and internal communication difficult.〔C. Harvie, ''Scotland: a Short History'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), ISBN 0192100548, pp. 10–11.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of agriculture in Scotland」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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