Showcases the latest research on Scotland's rural economy and society.

Early modern Scotland was predominantly rural. Agriculture was the main occupation of most people at the time, so what happened in the countryside was crucial: economically, socially and culturally. The essays collected here focus on the years between around 1500 and 1750. This period, although before the main era of agricultural "improvement" in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, was nevertheless far from static in terms of agrarian development. Specific topics addressed include everyday farming practices; investment; landlords, tenants and estate management; and the cultural context within which agriculture was "imagined". The disastrous famine of 1622-23 is analysed in detail. The volume is completed by a comprehensive survey of recent historiography, setting agricultural history in its broader context.

Introduction: Exploring Scotland's Agricultural HistoryHarriet Cornell, Julian Goodare and Alan R. MacDonald
1. Imagining Scottish Agriculture Before the ImproversJulian Goodare
2. The Use of Dykes in Scottish Farming 1500-1700Briony Kincaid
3. The Famine of 1622-23 in ScotlandKevin Hall
4. Weather and Farming through the Eyes of a Sixteenth-Century Highland PeasantJulian Goodare
5. Stock, Fermes, Mails and Duties in a Midlothian Barony 1587-89Norah Carlin
6. The Roots of Improvement: Early Seventeenth-Century Agriculture on the Mains of Dundas, LinlithgowshireAlan R. MacDonald
7. 'God Knowis my Sleipisar Short and Unsound': Andro Smyth's Collection of Rent, Tax, Teind and Tolls in Shetland c.1640Brian Smith
8. Farming in the Stirling Area 1560-1750John G. Harrison
9. What Were the Fiars Prices Used For?T. C. Smout
10. Agriculture and Banking in Eighteenth-Century Scotland 1695-1750Gains Murdoch
11. Capitalism's Cradle? Ideas, Policies, and the Rise of the Scottish Economy in the Mercantilist Age 1600-1800Philipp Robinson Rössner
Conclusion: An Historiographical and Bibliographical OverviewR. A. Houston
Index