ABSTRACT
Yet the economic balance of farming communities depended on the integration of these two sides, and there is no doubt that the ending of runrig in the Highlands was as much brought about by changes in the grazing as by changes in the organisation of the arable. In this chapter two areas are considered, one where the use of shielings was a mark of the traditional pastoral economy, and one covering Orkney and Shetland, where it was not. What follows is an attempt to use such sources to throw light on the organisation of grazings, with special reference to shieling systems and their ultimate decline, and to areas where no shieling system appears to have existed. However, where the grazing of cattle for commercial purposes, for the droving trade, was concerned, change was less drastic, more evolutionary, and showed that the grazing areas were capable of natural development.
