William Cullen's Agricultural Lectures and Writings and the Development of Agricultural Science in Eighteenth- Century Scotland* by CHARLES W J WITHERS
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
William Cullen's Agricultural Lectures and Writings and the Development of Agricultural Science in Eighteenth- Century Scotland* By CHARLES W J WITHERS Abstract It is now becoming recognized that the Scottish agricultural improvers had carlicr antecedents than many of their English and Welsh counterparts. In this articlc, the work of William Cullen is analyzcd to demonstrate the significance of his agricultural lectures at Edinburgh and Glasgow in the 174os and I75os, and to suggest the strength of links between the Scottish scientific community and agricultural improvcmcnt. Linked intellectually with figures such as Maxwcll and Kamcs, Cullcn conductcd practical cxpcrimcnts on family farms and reprcsented a striking cxamplc of that blend of practicc and scicntific abstraction which helped transform eightecnth-century Scottish farming through practical education. HEN Allan Ramsay wrote in his Ramsay points to some of the means by I723 poem 'The Pleasures of which agricultural knowledge in Scotland W Improv[e]ments in Agriculture', was improved and disseminated in follow- how Scotland was a 'Nation Long more ing years. keen of martial toil/than cultivating of a continou Best of Clubs Long to Improvc yeilding [sic] soil', he could perhaps not your nativc Plains and gain your nations Lovc have foreseen those developments that Rowsc cvry Lazy Laird of cach widc fcild were to characterize Scottish agriculture that unmanurd not half their Product ycild during the later eighteenth century.' Yet, shew them thc proper season soil and art in closing his poem, written in praise of how they may Plenty to their Lands impart Trccplc their Rents cncrcasc the farmcrs store the foundation that year of The Honour- without thc Purchcs of otic Acre tnorc able the Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland, Much modern research has been concerned with investigating the bases to agricultural change in eighteenth-century Scotland (see below). It has suggested, too, that that image of earlier backwardness epitomized * Acknowledgements For permission to quote from manuscripts in their care, 1 in Ramsay's 'Lazy Laird' and evident in am grateful to the Keeper of the Special Collections Glasgow some interpretations of Scotland's agrarian University Library; the Librarian of the Royal College of Phys- icians, Edinburgh; tbe Keeper of the Manuscripts in Edinburgh history nmst be reappraised.: Several University Library; and the National Library of Scotland. The authors have shown how the late seven- researcb on which this paper was based was done whilst a teenth century in particular was marked Researcb Fellow at the Instimtc for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, and with funding from a British Academy Small Grants P,escarch Fund in the Humani- ties and the College of St Paul and St Mary. I am indebted to ' The image of backwardness and of triumphalist 'revolution' ill these bodies for their support. I am grateful to the Editor and the eighteenth century is one lhvourcd by J E Handlcy, Scottish to two anonymous referees for their helpful comments on an Farmin.~, itt tile E(~lhteenth Ct'tttlo'),, Edinburgh, 1953; hlem, The earlier draft of this paper. A2ricu!tural Repohaion in Scotlamt, Edinburgh, t963; H Hamilton, ' In A M Kinghorn and A Law (eds), The l'Ih~r!,,sq]'Allan Ramsay, An IE'amomic Histor), of Scotland in the Eighteenth Centur),, Oxford, Edinburgh, 1961, 111, pp 171-17z. ~963. Ag Hist Rev, 37, II, pp t44-I56 14.4 'q :4 WILLIAM CULLEN'S AGRICULTURAL LECTURES AND WRITINGS I45 by major advances in land management of only local significance but others pro- and in legislation toward an improved agri- vided an important means to the sharing culture. 3 of observations on farming practice and a Drawing as it did upon this earlier forum in which to debate innovations in 'impetus to improvement'? the eighteenth crops and techniques. In their dates of. century (the latter decades especially) may, foundation and their attention to agricul- nevertheless, be distinguished from it as tural education, many of. these organiz- one of the principal periods of change in ations in Scotland were in advance of. their Scottish agriculture both because of the counterparts in England and Wales scale of change then taking place - geo- although bodies in those countries shared graphically throughout Scotland (except- the same concerns. 7 ing perhaps the Highlands) and in the Additionally in Scotland, there were a degree to which new practices were being number of. formal institutions whose adopted - and because of the involvement agenda, at least in part, covered agricul- then of. particular agencies acting to turat improvement. In this category we advance agricultural knowledge in ways may include, for example, the Edinburgh not typical of. earlier periods, s Several Society for Encouraging Art, Science, related topics have been identified in this Manufactures and Agriculture, founded in latter context. I'755, which gave prizes for essays on As Boud has shown, The Honourable topics such as tree planting and manures; the Society of Improvers was the first of. the Royal Society of. Edinburgh, begun in many agricultural 'improvement' societies 1783, which was at its foundation con- founded in Scotland during the eighteenth cerned with agriculture; the Highland and century whose concern was with advocat- Agricultural Society of. Scotland; the Select ing better principles and practices of rural Society, begun in I754; and the Philosophi- management, c' Many were short-lived and cal Society, founded in I737. These and other bodies illustrate the close links that existed between social and cultural insti- 3On this point, see for example, T C Smout and A Fenton, tutions, scientific enterprise, and the devei- 'Scottish Agriculture before tile Improvers - an Exploration', opment of. the Scottish rural economy in Agric Hist Rev, 13, 1965, pp 73-93; 1 D Whyte, Agricuhuee aml Society in Seventeenth Century Scodattd, Edinburgh, I979; hlem, the eighteenth century. ~ The attention 'George l)undas of 1)undas: the context of air early eighteenth- given to agrarian matters by such bodies century Scottish improving landowner', Scott Hist Rev, LX0), 1981, pp 1-13; R A l)odgshon, Lamt and Society in Early Scothlmt, varied, however, and taken together, their Oxford, ~981; T C Smout, 'Where had the Scottish economy got to by I776', in ! Hont and M lgnatieff (eds), Wealth amt V'irme: 7 On such bodies in England, see for example, N P W Goddard, the Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enl(kqltentnent, Cam- 'Agricultural Societies', in G E Mingay (ed), The Victorian bridge, 1985, pp 45-73; Anand C Chimis, 'Agricultural improve- Cotmtr),side, 1981, l, pp 243-259; idem, 'William Shaw "of tile ment, political management and civic virtue in enlightened Strand" and the tbrmation of the Royal Agricultural Society of Scotland: air historiographical critique', Studies on Vohaire amt England', JRASE, CXLIII, I983, pp 98-to4; H S A Fox, 'Local the E(~hteemh Century, CCXLV, 1986, pp 475-488; idem, 'The ~lrmers' associations and the circulation of agricultural infor- EighteeiM1-Century Scottish Intellectual Inquiry: Context and mation m nineteenth-century England', in H S A Fox and R A Contilmities versos Civic Virtue', in J Carter and J l'ittock (eds), Butlin, (eds), Change in the Countryside, Institute of British Geogra- Aberdeell and the Iz'nl(e,htenment, Aberdeen, 1987, pp 77-92. phers Special Publication to, Oxtbrd, 1981, pp 43-64 and notes 4 R H Campbell, 'The Enlightenment and the Economy', in R H therein; K Hudson, Patriotism u,ith profit: British aj,,ricuhural societies Campbdl and A Skilmer (eds), The Or(vim and Nature l!l" the it1 the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, 1972; idem, The Bath and Scottish Enl(lgltenment, Edinburgh, 1982, pp 21-22. West: a bicemenary history, Bradford-on-Avon, 1976; oll Wales, Recent detailed reviews of tile development of Scotti:;h agriculture see R J Colyer, 'Early agricultural societies in South Wales', Wel since 17oo include l)odgshon op tit; M L Parry and T P, Slater His Rev, t2(4), 1985, pp 567-581; H Edmunds, 'Tile History of (eds), The Makitlg of die Scottish Colmuyside, 198o; G Whittington, the Brecknockshire Agricultural Society, x755-1955', Br)'cheinoiq,, 'Agriculture and Society in Lowland Scotland, 175c~187o', in II, t956, pp 32-36; E Wyn Jones, 'Tile First Carmarthenshire G Whittington and 1 D Whyte (eds), An Historical (hok~raphy qf Agricultural Society', Carm Amiq, Ill, 1961, pp 15o-156; W H Scodamt, i983, pp 141-164; 1) Turnock, The Historical Geqlmlplly Howse, 'Radnorshire Agricultural Societies', Rad Soc Teans, XV, of ScodaM since t7o7, Cambridge, 1982, pp 66-82. 1945, pp 23-31. " R C Boud, 'Scottish Agricultural hnprovcment Societies, s S Shapin, 'Tile attdience for science in eighteenth-century Edin- t723-1835', Review o]'Scottish Culture, I, 1984, pp 70-9o. burgh', Hist Sci, Xll, 1974, pp 99--1o4. I46 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW contribution to agricultural knowledge chemistry were particularly important. 13 was certainly less vital than that of the Thus Francis Home in his 1757 The Prin- specifically agricultural societies. The ciples of Agriculture and Vegetation in part Highland and Agricultural Society only intended his work to educate '... those took that title from 1834 (being begun in whose minds have never been improved r784 as the Highland Society of Scotland), by science, taught to make observations or agricultural interests having before then draw conclusions'. Home chose to demon- vied for attention with a commitment to strate through experimentation the scien- Gaelic culture. 9 And although the Philo- tific basis to the 'principles of agriculture', sophical Society contained members of particularly its 'dependence on chymi- The Honourable the Society for Improvers stry'. 14 Lord Kames represented many of and declared agriculture important, only these concerns in his work.