THE CORNKISTER DAYS: PORTRAIT OF A LAND AND ITS RITUALS. By David Kerr Cameron.

1984 1st edition. 8vo (140 x 222mm). Pp263. B/w photograph plates. Blue cloth, spine titled in gilt.

"Now, in his third book, [David Kerr Cameron] ...gives us the story of the life of the fields and the work routines of the old farming countryside, its seasons and rituals, the background against which farming folk lived out their days. He begins with the great rural upheaval in the latter part of the 18th century, when the more far-sighted and dynamic lairds embarked on an immense improvement in agricultural methods. ...Enclosures, yes, that's the other side of the coin - and Mr Cameron displays both sides". . . The agricultural revolution in Scotland described - and well worth a read: "Astonishingly, even hay was a new crop in Scotland, and hay-making a neglected art until into the 1800's". Chapters include: The land and the folk; The laird and the landscape; end of an idyll; Patterns of the year; The ploughs of winter; harrowing time; The ballet of the hay; The rituals of harvest; Binder days; Old alignments; The gold of autumn; When the potato was king; The roots of wealth; Marts and measures; The song of the Clydes; The horseman's word; The lore of the land; The mystique of muck; Of byres and bailies; Laments for a lost landscape".