The Making of The Shetland Landscape, S. Knox: Hardback: 1st Edition

By Susan A. Knox.

Published by John Donald Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh, 1985. First Edition. Hardback cover with dustjacket (unclipped), 255 pages. Black & white illustrations.

CONDITION
Overall good condition - see photos. Fading to spine of dustjacket. No names or writing. Illustrations crisp & clear throughout.

Studies of Shetland's economy tend to focus on its maritime aspects, while the complementary agricultural system receives little direct attention. The traditional resources of Shetland are more evenly balanced between land and sea than those of either Faroe or Orkney. This title seeks to give the agriculture of Shetland the weight it merits.

Dr Knox examines the transformation of Shetland's agricultural economy from one of subsistence in the eighteenth century to one of commercial stock-rearing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A radical contribution towards this transformation was the division and taking into landlord ownership of a large part of the common grazing - the scattald - which, supplemented by fishing, had provided the vital element of a subsistence economy. Innovations such as enclosed fields, drained mosses, changed crops and rotations, and the introduction of large numbers of sheep and cattle had a profound effect on the landscape of the islands. The physical and social transformation of Shetland by this process of enclosure is placed in the wider context of agricultural and economic change on the British and international scene.