Excerpt from History of the United Co-Operative Baking Society Ltd: A Fifty Years' Record, 1869-1919

In the hall of the laird the position was a little better, but few of the lairds of that day could aspire to the standard of living of a moderately well-to - do farmer of to-day. Of food there was always enough in the hall, but it was coarse and unsavoury. Throughout the winter fresh meat was unknown. The cattle were killed in the autumn the meat was stored in brine barrels, and this brine-soaked meat, or swine flesh pre served in the same manner, was the only meat which found a place on the table of the laird during the winter months, except on the few occasions of great importance when. One or two fowls were killed.

The farming class, if it be not a misnomer to call them farmers, usually lived in groups of such huts as are described above, and tilled their land more or less in common. The system chiefly in vogue was the run rig system, under which exchange of ground took place every year. The more important of their crude implements were also held in common, and as these could only be used by one person at a time - as, also, it was often well on in the spring before any thought of tillage occurred to them or the condition of their water-logged soil would permit of it, and as much time was often lost in deciding the rotation in the use of the implements - the return in the good years was only just sufficient for their wants. As the bad years were generally twice as numerous as the good years, the conditions of the rural workers were generally most miserable. Ill-treated Nature, receiving no encouragement from man save the tickling of her face with a stick, refused to give of her bounty, and the people who depended on her for life suffered accordingly.

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