ABSTRACT

Failure, of course, is a subjective term and there were probably as many dierent degrees of failure as there were dierent reasons for failure, all dependent upon which perspective is chosen. is chapter will focus on a particularly stark example of agricultural improvement on the Grant estates in Strathspey aer 1762 and discuss the theories that underpinned the improvement, the reactions of the tenantry to the changes and the scale of the social and economic costs involved. To all intents and purposes, the mass conversion of traditional shieling sites and their accompanying ‘waste’ into tenant-occupied farms with enclosed

eld systems which took place here was the application of a model of planned improvement that had been successfully applied elsewhere. It could have worked in Strathspey, to the benet of both estate and tenantry in the longer term, but unfortunately for both parties there were signicant associated factors outwith the direct control of the estate that forced the landowner to alter his original plans, and which eventually resulted in huge social and economic costs.