A Jar of Seed-Corn:
Portrait of an Island Farm
by Jocelyn Rendall

It is well known that some of the best farms in Orkney are in the North Isles. So, a book about one of these farms, telling its history with care and understanding, is a welcome addition to the literature available on the fortunes and unsteady progress of agriculture in these islands.

A Jar of Seed-Corn: Portrait of an Island Farm by Jocelyn Rendall, is a very intimate study of the farm of Holland in Papa Westray. Holland is an ideal example of a large North Isles farm being the “big hoose” of the island, having to make its own way but, at the same time, for most of its history up to the present time, having a great number of people and smallholdings dependent on its success.

This is no shallow listing of events. Much research and study in depth has produced a very rounded and detailed picture. This is applied not just to Holland but is related also to the whole farming scene in Orkney over the centuries. Holland’s rises and falls in fortune mirror exactly what was happening all over the Orcadian countryside.

It is in that countryside that the book begins, conscious of the proximity of the Knap of Howar, the oldest known settlement. We are taken through the times of “unimproved” farming, when there were small diggings protected from the few livestock while the miserable crops grew, when everyone communally used the outrun and the rigs were exchanged each year; through the enclosing of fields and division of commonty, through the backbreaking days of real improvement and the work of quarrying stone for roads, dykes and buildings, the improvement of land with ditching, draining and liming and the selection of crops and animals.

We are taken through all the stages of improvement up to the present day.

This is all linked to the fortunes of the Traill family – at one time, one of the foremost and most powerful land-owning families in Orkney. Holland was, for a long period, their principal seat and they administered their estates in much the same way as others at that time.

Thomas Traill, the seventh Laird of Holland, was the most enlightened and brought in many changes and improvements but, unfortunately, bankrupted himself in the process in 1886.

These lairds were first and foremost merchants and their lands and those living there received only scant attention. The punitive rents levied were their main interest. The misery of these times is brought to our notice again and many facts are presented which bear witness to the never ending struggle of the ordinary folk.

Many facts have been gleaned from account books, estate papers, maps and other sources. Descriptions and situations are backed up by true facts so that we can gain a genuine insight into the tortuous journey of farming into modern times.

Break in the day – a scene from A Jar of Seedcorn, Portrait of an Island Farm.

Although transport is not taken as a subject by itself, which perhaps it could have been, the pictures of cattle being slung on to boats and the Holmie photo of ten people and several great sacks of wool being transported in a small open boat sitting well down in the water, maybe tell that story better than words. Other pictures and the neat line drawings by Inga Hourston also enhance the work.

This is a very tidy, concise and easily followed account of the times, presented in chronological order. While it would have been easy to digress and become sentimental, firm rein has been kept on the presentation and facts and statistics carefully chosen.

This will become a very important book. The work done in amassing so many facts will save the rest of us from trawling through many sources. It is a book which should be read by everyone connected with farming and by those interested in the internal shaping of the Orkney we have today. It gives us a rare understanding of our inheritance.

It must not be thought that this is a dry amalgam of facts. A deep appreciation of the struggle and fortunes of ordinary folk shines through – their triumphs and disasters, fears overcome and hopes unfulfilled.

The book ends with the author highlighting the tremendous changes that are again taking place in farming. While she is fearful for the future, as so many farming generations have been, she takes comfort from the routine of everyday seasonal tasks and tries hard to maintain the optimism and stoical endurance without which there would be no farmers.

The foreword is by William P. L. Thomson and, to assist the reader, there is a glossary, Appendix I, Papay in Lord Henry’s Rental, Appendix II Orkney’s Imports and Exports 1805-06, Bibliography and Abbreviations, list of references and a very comprehensive Index.

M. B.