For the Betterment of Mankind: Scotland, the Enlightenment and the Agricultural Revolution

Abstract

Here I stand at what is called the ‘Cross of Edinburgh’, and can, in a few minutes, take fifty men of genius and learning by the hand.

This intriguing and impressive observation from a learned Englishman in the 1770s was recorded by the Edinburgh printer, antiquary and biographer, William Smellie. The latter half of the eighteenth century is regarded as a period that saw an extraordinary outburst of intellectual activity now identified by historians under the title of the Scottish Enlightenment. A product of this intellectual activity of the Enlightenment was the improvement of agriculture, a process conventionally labelled as the agricultural revolution. This short study will examine some ways in which contemporary ideas were articulated and by whom in this period, together with processes by which the theory of discussion and debate filtered through experimentation into practical husbandry and the material culture of Scotland.