History lesson please

I don’t know a thing about it, but it seems to make sense. If you have a cow she could do field work and produce milk. Then you only have one animal to feed instead of two.

@jac 21024 wrote:

numbers and usage of oxen in around 1750-1800… primarily in Scotland… could it be possible that oxen were the power source at that time.

We actually had this discussion recently. Mitchmaine provided the data, he may be able to refer you to sources. Of note: “oxen hit their high mark in maine as choice for draft power In 1858”. Dates likely differed between the US and Scotland, but without the westward expansion and associated fast travel needs, I doubt Scotland was much quicker in this conversion.

dlskidmore, do you mean conversion to horses?
i have fairly big holes in knowledge concerning this, but taking the terrain, climate and soil types of scotland in consideration, i’d say that conversion to horses on any significant scale would have been unlikelly, at least in highlands.

and also, scotland resembles maine a lot because maine also has stony soil, little farms,.. and oxen never really left maine, so…

about “primitive farming” in scotland… scotland was one of the countries whose authors were significant to the start of the second agr. revolution, from what i remember.
whatever the impact of these writings had in the lowlands i wonder how much they changed the agriculture in the highlands?

jac, i patch them up from everywhere, little bits of various stuff i happen to know, but as long as it serves the purpose i think it’s ok.

Good morning guys. I have a couple books of old archival photos of early maine with text descriptions. Not tables or statistics at all, but little footnotes with some numbers on how life was behind the photographs.
Leaves you to think, because of fish first and ships later, farming and wood, we were quite prosperous or at least busy feeding the port cities of colonial America. Then the railroads and canals finally made it to the Midwest and the tide turned and we became self sustaining and traded amongst ourselves. So we turned to textiles and let ourselves get fed with the Midwestern food, and now the industry is about gone, but we are still used to buying in our food. That’s a hard habit to break.
I think there are a lot of similarities between northern new England and northern old England. Especially on the ground.
One thing of interest was that in our “hayday” of shipping (which died overnight in the 1890 when Scotland shipyards started building iron ships), one of our biggest imports was the sugar trade with the west indies. Wheat went down and cane came back, and Portland had about a dozen distilleries making rum. Rum was our oil and we ran our workforce on it. Along with smallwages, was an allotment of rum for a days pay. So some things don’t change that much.

Good day to you all, mitch

Thinking of the image of highland life I have, would much draft have been used at all? Did they do arable or logging? Light draft such as packing goods and travel etc. could easily have been done by native ponies or equally, local cattle. If they were mostly just grazing stuff up in the mountains that would be all that was needed. Or is this place a bit lower and more hospitable for a bit more serious ‘farming’ rather than grazing and subsistence?

just thinking aloud…

@jac 21102 wrote:

. but then a lot of folks think Mel Gibsons version of events are true:rolleyes:..
John

I guess a bit of misinformation is the price of freedom. Or perhaps the price of…

FREEEEEEEDOMMM!

Anyway, I remember reading that Rabbie Burns wasna sae mich o’ a farmer. That it was more his brother Gilbert who took care of the farm while Robert ran around Ayrshire precipitating crises with various women. But steady-state farmers are boring, who wants to read about them?