Abstract
One of the pleasantly surprising features in the personal make-up and career of this judge, man of letters and would-be philosopher is the very lively and at times even engrossing interest he developed in his middle years, and manifested to the end of his life, in farming, in problems of agriculture and agricultural improvement, in forestry and in other aspects of country life and the rural economy.2
Agriculture justly claims to be the chief of the arts; it enjoys the signal pre-eminence of combining philosophy with useful practice. (Kames)
Our gentleman farmers who live in the country have become active and industrious farmers. They embellish the field, improve the land and give bread to thousands. (Kames)
This phrase we take from a marginal note in a letter addressed to Chancellor Hardwicke (See Appendix III), in which Kames apologizes for the poor form of the letter and enclosure due to the absence of his amanuensis and his haste to be getting off or “flying” to his farm. Elsewhere he writes, “We are on the wing to Blair Drummond where we shall double satisfaction ...”
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References
The principal sources on Kames’s fanning interests and activities are, besides his Gentleman Farmer (Edinburgh, 1776), Tytler, II, 27ff. and 167–194; Ramsay, I, Ch. 3, passim and II, Ch. 10; Andrew Wight, The Present State of Husbandry in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1778 and later), Vol. I, pp. 183–203, Appendix, pp. 377–391, Vol. II, pp. 338f., and Vol. IV (Vol. VI as bound; published in 1784), Part II, pp. 612ff. and 659–664; and Sinclair, Statistical Account of Scotland [Old], Vol. VI, pp. 477–505 and notes thereto in Vol. XXI, Appendix, Note L (pp. 151–181). See also Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vol. III, Part II, Subsection I, Article XIV, pp. 266–279, and Encyclopedia Britannica (third edition, 1793 ), Vol. XII, s.v., Moss, Kincardine. Note also correspondence with Cullen, Black, Walker, Reid and Arthur Young cited elsewhere in this study.
Boswell, XV, 289.
See Tytler, II, 175f.; Ramsay, II, Ch. X, esp. pp. 277ff. See also James E. Handley, The Agricultural Revolution in Scotland (Glasgow, 1963), J. A. Simon, Scottish Farmers Past and Present (Edinburgh, 1959), and William Ferguson, Scotland: 1689 to the Present (Edinburgh, 1968 ), p. 169.
Archibald Grant of Monymusk in Aberdeenshire is reported to have planted literally millions of trees on his estate. See among other sources, Henry Hamilton, An Economic History of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1963 ), pp. 64 – 66.
See generally on this matter, Kames’s Gentleman Farmer,Part II; John Thomson, The Life, Lectures and Writings of William Cullen (Edinburgh, 1832), vol. I, pp. 60–78 and 590–603 (Cullen-Kames correspondence); and Tytler, II, App. II, pp. 23-84 (Kames-Black, Walker, Nasmith and Reid correspondence on scientific matters relating to agriculture). See also infra,pp. 299ff.
See infra,App. I, No. 2.
Boswell in Holland: 1763–64,ed. F. A. Pottle (New York, 1952), p. 87. Permission McGraw-Hill & Co.
Letter quoted in Tytler, II, 63f.
Gentleman Farmer,pp. ix and App. 1.
Gentleman Farmer, passim; and Wight, op. cit.,vol. I, App., Art. 1, pp. 377–91 and vol. IV, Pt. ii, App., Art. II, pp. 659–64.
Letter, Kames to Grant of Seafield, 29 April, 1767. See Fraser, Chiefs of Grant, vol. II, pp. 449f., Letter No. 527. See also Tytler, II, 65.
For sources on this undertaking, see supra,p. 81, n. 2. From the article “Moss” in the Encyclopedia Britannica,we learn that Kames’s moss-clearance project was not quite so unprecedented as was generally thought, but it was widely hailed and beyond question historically significant.
The “Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge” (S.S.P.C.K., usually simply S.P.C.K.), no doubt modelled after a similar society in England, originated in “a meeting of a few private gentlemen in Edinburgh” in 1701 but was more formally organized in 1708. It early won the support of Queen Anne and received a charter from the Crown in 1709. It was from the beginning closely associated with the Church of Scotland without becoming a part of its structure, and with the setting up of the Board of Commissioners for the Annexed Estates, worked very closely with that organization (see infra,pp. 101f). Its stated primary purpose was the enlightenment, civilization and Christianization of the Highlanders and Islanders, but it also included the winning of them away from the Roman Catholic to the Protestant faith. After the Jacobite risings, promoting loyalty to the Crown was also included in this objective. It played a most active role in establishing and supporting parish schools and generally promoting education in the Highlands and Islands. A second objective was, however, also “the propagation of Christianity in foreign parts,” which found expression particularly in missionary work among the Indians in the West Indies and on the frontiers of the American Colonies.
See [Anon.], A Summary Account of the Rise and Progress of the Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (Edinburgh, 1783), and Henry Hunter (Secretary to the Corresponding Board in London), A Brief History of the Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge… from the Establishment of the Society in 1701 (London, 1795). See also, D. J. Withrington, “The S.P.C.K. and Highland Schools in the Mid-Eighteenth Century,” in Scottish Historical Review,XLI, pp. 89–99. Brief references will also be found in the recent histories of Scotland in this period by W. Ferguson, op. cit.,Pryde, op. cit.,and others (see Indexes), and in D. McElroy, op. cit.,pp. 7f.
There were two editions of this work during Kames’s lifetime, a first in 1776 and a second in 1779; others appeared in 1788, 1798, 1802 and 1815. There was also a pirated Dublin edition in 1779. There were probably other reprintings as well. Tytler reports an “ingenious and learned friend” — not otherwise identified but probably James Ogilvie, the Earl of Finlater, later Lord Deskford — as stating of this “attempt to improve agriculture by subjecting it to the test of rational principles” that it “had a remarkable influence in diffusing [agricultural] knowledge, and in prompting to new experiments and improvements throughout the nation… and promises to bring husbandry to a state of perfection hitherto unknown and even unexpected.” (Tytler, II, 181ff.) There are further observations by this same author, which Tytler also quotes at length, on the influence of this work on the development of forestry in Scotland.
Gentleman Farmer,p. x.
Ochtertyre MSS., vol. I, pp. 505ff. Also Ramsay, II, 228.
Ramsay, I, 209.
See Kames, Sketches of the History of Man,Book II, Sketch 11.
Ibid.,III, 126ff.
Ibid.,pp. 130f.
Gentleman Farmer,p. xviii.
Tytler, I, 111; also James Mitchell, The Scotsman’s Library (Edinburgh, 1825), p. 577.
There are many versions of this anecdote in the standard Karnes sources. One of the versions reduces a “waist-coat pocket” to a “snuff-box.”
Graham, Scottish Men of Letters,pp. 256f.
Ramsay, Ochtertyre MSS., vol. I, pp. 505ff. Copyright, see supra,p. 25, n. 20.
Letter, Kames to Catherine Gordon, 4 Nov., 1765. See infra, note to Appendix I, letter 7. Permission, The Trustees of the British Museum.
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Lehmann, W.C. (1971). ‘I Fly to My Farm’: A Gentleman Farmer in Overalls. In: Henry Home, Lord Kames and the Scottish Enlightenment. International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives Internationales D’Histoire des Idées, vol 41. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1765-6_6
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