The wicker basket (above) would have had many uses in Scottish farms of the 18th century. It might see use for carrying the crop from the field, collecting peat/wood for the fire, or storing household produce. The baskets were made from willow or hazel, often by the itinerant Scots travelling people who journeyed across the country selling household goods. The baskets were typically fastened to backs of the women. Wicker baskets were also fashioned into currachs which were wicker creels hung on each side of a horse's saddle. Dung was carried from the farmyard to the fields in these currachs and, in harvest, they were used to transport the sheaves of grain. The two currachs had to be filled simultaneously in order to keep them balanced.

When corn or meal had to be taken to or from the mill, or conveyed away for sale, a sack or lade was put across each horse's back, and the animals followed one another in single file, the halter of the second horse tied to the tail of the first.

Above, the slype was a sledge used to transport heavy items, for example large stones unearthed during ploughing. The slype was cut from a tree where the split branches formed a roughly symmetrical tee. Rough planks of wood were attached across the branches to form a platform for the load. Ropes or chains connected the iron hoop at the front with the horse or ox pulling it. Yokes around the oxen necks were crude pieces of curved wood sitting upon a pad of moss (or similar substance) to reduce abrasions.

Wheeled transportation was also crude, and rare. There might be one or two carts within an entire parish. The cart was made entirely of un-planed wood, including the axle-tree. The wheels did not turn around the axle-tree; instead it was the axle-tree that turned. With no grease used to facilitate movement, moving carts were announced well in advance of their arrival.

A road network as we know it did not exist. Instead, villages were connected by a network of tracks that had taken their form from the hoof-marks of the cattle that traversed them. These routes, occasionally containing a few stones thrown into the bottom of the soft parts, were fit for cattle or for a tough pony with bags slung over their backs or drawing a sledge over the slimy mud. The roads were generally impassable to four-wheeled carts. Long-distance routes between large burghs did exist but passage depended on the season since rainy weather would make them impassable to wheeled vehicles. This created a vicious circle. Poor roads made it impossible for farmers to import materials (e.g., fertilizer) or to take their produce to more distant markets. This in turn eliminated any incentive to improve their crop yields. With no goods to take to distant markets, there was no incentive to improve roads.

Transportation gradually improved in the second half of the 18th century. After the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, the government embarked on a program of road and bridge building that would enable them to move forces more quickly across the countryside. This led to more road development throughout Scotland which was a precursor for, and an accelerant to, the Agricultural Revolution that took place in the second half of the century.

Sources

Various web sites, including

Rural Life in the 18th Century (www.electricscotland.com/history/rural_lifendx.htm)

Scottishmist (www.scottishmist.com)