Farming During the Life of Robert Burns

Before the crop rotation improvements started, life as a farmer was very difficult as the soil was very poor. That meant that the crops were poor too and farmers did not get much money for them. If farmers did not have enough money to buy a field then they would rent one from the land owner. On the fields there were very few dykes (walls) and no trees.

Each person rented his own small part of land on which he grew crops or vegetables or kept livestock.

The improvements in farming were due to a new idea called crop rotation. Farmers started to put cows in one field and different crops in the other three. Then they would change them round every year. This worked because cows produce dung, and dung made the ground more fertile. Also, farmers built dykes. Dykes are stone walls. They stopped the seed being blown away and acted as a boundary to farmers’ property. They also made drains to let the rainwater trickle away. This stopped the fields getting boggy. They had also discovered a new vegetable called a turnip. It was used to feed the cattle in winter and people could also eat it.

The benefits were that the crops were better, so farmers got more money for them. They could therefore feed their family and animals better food. Also they could afford to buy lime. Lime is a substance that you put on the ground to make it more crumbly. This all meant that people could pay their rents more easily and still had money left over to improve their farms even more.