Scotland, at the start of the 1700

Scotland, at the start of the 1700s, was a very poor country. The best farmlands were in the Lowlands, but those farmlands were overrun by the Highlanders and the English so often, that the Lowlanders were not motivated to work very hard to make their farms profitable. They simply did as best as they could to keep alive. In addition to that, the Scots were overall ignorant of "modern" farming methods. They knew little about the value of crop rotation. They tended to plant the same crop year after year until the ground was practically depleted of any nutrients. An English traveler who visited the Lowlands of Scotland in the early 1700s noted that, for the most part, the countryside was so barren that grass did not even grow there.