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Scottish Potato Famine
The Highland Potato Famine () was a period of 19th-century Scottish Highland history (1846 to roughly 1856) over which the agricultural communities of the Hebrides and the western Scottish Highlands () saw their potato crop (upon which they had become over-reliant) repeatedly devastated by potato blight. It was part of the wider food crisis facing Northern Europe caused by potato blight during the mid-1840s, whose most famous manifestation is the Great Irish Famine, but compared with its Irish counterpart, it was much less extensive (the population seriously at risk was never more than 200,000 – and often much less) and took many fewer lives as prompt and major charitable efforts by the rest of the United Kingdom ensured relatively little starvation. The terms on which charitable relief was given, however, led to destitution and malnutrition amongst its recipients. A government enquiry could suggest no short-term solution other than reduction of the population of the area at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Potato Blight
''Phytophthora infestans'' is an oomycete or water mold, a fungus-like microorganism that causes the serious potato and tomato disease known as late blight or potato blight. Early blight, caused by '' Alternaria solani'', is also often called "potato blight". Late blight was a major culprit in the 1840s European, the 1845–1852 Irish, and the 1846 Highland potato famines. The organism can also infect some other members of the Solanaceae. The pathogen is favored by moist, cool environments: sporulation is optimal at in water-saturated or nearly saturated environments, and zoospore production is favored at temperatures below . Lesion growth rates are typically optimal at a slightly warmer temperature range of . Etymology The genus name ''Phytophthora'' comes from the Greek (), meaning 'plant' – plus the Greek (), meaning 'decay, ruin, perish'. The species name ''infestans'' is the present participle of the Latin verb , meaning 'attacking, destroying', from which the word ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Matheson
Sir James Nicolas Sutherland Matheson, 1st Baronet, FRS (17 November 179631 December 1878), was a Scottish opium trader and taipan. Born in Shiness, Lairg, Sutherland, Scotland, he was the son of Captain Donald Matheson. He attended Edinburgh's Royal High School and the University of Edinburgh. He and William Jardine went on to co-found the Hong Kong-based trading conglomerate Jardine Matheson & Co. that became today's Jardine Matheson Holdings. China and Hong Kong After leaving university, Matheson spent two years in a London agency house before departing for Calcutta, India and a position in his uncle's trading firm, Mackintosh & Co. In 1807, Matheson was entrusted by his uncle with a letter to be delivered to the captain of a soon-to-depart British vessel. He forgot to deliver the missive and the vessel sailed without it. Incensed at his nephew's negligence, the uncle suggested that young James might be better off back in Britain. He took his uncle at his word and went ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke Of Sutherland
George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland, KG (8 August 178627 February 1861), styled Viscount Trentham until 1803, Earl Gower between 1803 and 1833 and Marquess of Stafford in 1833, was a British peer and Whig politician from the Leveson-Gower family. Early life Sutherland-Leveson-Gower was born at Portland Place, London, on 8 August 1786, and baptised at St Marylebone Parish Church. He was the eldest son of George Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland, and his wife Elizabeth Sutherland, ''suo jure'' Countess of Sutherland. He was educated at Harrow School from 1798 to 1803, then entered Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1806 and M.A. in 1810. In 1841 he graduated D.C.L. at the same university. Between 1806 and 1808, Earl Gower travelled in Prussia and Russia. During the Prussian campaign against Napoleon's French forces, he spent time at the Prussians' general headquarters. Career After returning from Europe, Earl Gower entere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Charles Trevelyan, 1st Baronet
Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan, 1st Baronet, (2 April 1807 – 19 June 1886) was an English people, English civil servant and British Empire, colonial administrator. As a young man, he worked with the colonial government in Kolkata, Calcutta, India. He returned to Britain and took up the post of Assistant Secretary to the HM Treasury, Treasury. During this time he was responsible for facilitating the government's response to the Great Famine (Ireland), Great Famine in Ireland. In the late 1850s and 1860s, he served there in senior-level appointments. Trevelyan was instrumental in the process of Northcote–Trevelyan Report, reforming the British Civil Service in the 1850s. Today Trevelyan is mostly remembered for his reluctance to disburse direct government food and monetary aid to the Irish during the famine due to his strong belief in ''laissez-faire'' economics. Trevelyan's defenders say that larger factors than his own acts and beliefs were more central to the problem of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leblanc Process
The Leblanc process was an early industrial process for making ''soda ash'' ( sodium carbonate) used throughout the 19th century, named after its inventor, Nicolas Leblanc. It involved two stages: making sodium sulfate from sodium chloride, followed by reacting the sodium sulfate with coal and calcium carbonate to make sodium carbonate. The process gradually became obsolete after the development of the Solvay process. Background Soda ash ( sodium carbonate) and potash ( potassium carbonate), collectively termed ''alkali'', are vital chemicals in the glass, textile, soap, and paper industries. The traditional source of alkali in western Europe had been potash obtained from wood ashes. However, by the 13th century, deforestation had rendered this means of production uneconomical, and alkali had to be imported. Potash was imported from North America, Scandinavia, and Russia, where large forests still stood. Soda ash was imported from Spain and the Canary Islands, where it w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salsola Soda
''Soda inermis'', the opposite-leaved saltwort, oppositeleaf Russian thistle, or barilla plant, is a small (to 0.7 m tall), annual, succulent shrub that is native to the Mediterranean Basin.Plants of the World Online ''Soda inermis'' Fourr. (retrieved 5 March 2024) It is a (a salt-tolerant plant) that typically grows in coastal regions and can be irrigated with salt water. The plant was previously classified as ''Salsola soda'', now regarded as a . The plant has great historical importance as a source of |
Soda Ash
Sodium carbonate (also known as washing soda, soda ash, sal soda, and soda crystals) is the inorganic compound with the formula and its various hydrates. All forms are white, odourless, water-soluble salts that yield alkaline solutions in water. Historically, it was extracted from the ashes of plants grown in sodium-rich soils, and because the ashes of these sodium-rich plants were noticeably different from ashes of wood (once used to produce potash), sodium carbonate became known as "soda ash". It is produced in large quantities from sodium chloride and limestone by the Solvay process, as well as by carbonating sodium hydroxide which is made using the chloralkali process. Hydrates Sodium carbonate is obtained as three hydrates and as the anhydrous salt: * sodium carbonate decahydrate ( natron), Na2CO3·10H2O, which readily effloresces to form the monohydrate. * sodium carbonate heptahydrate (not known in mineral form), Na2CO3·7H2O. * sodium carbonate monohydrate ( thermonatri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kelp
Kelps are large brown algae or seaweeds that make up the order (biology), order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genus, genera. Despite its appearance and use of photosynthesis in chloroplasts, kelp is technically not a plant but a stramenopile (a group containing many protists). Kelp grow from stalks close together in kelp forest, very dense areas like forests under shallow temperate and Arctic oceans. They were previously thought to have appeared in the Miocene, 5 to 23 million years ago based on fossils from California. New fossils of kelp holdfasts from early Oligocene rocks in Washington State show that kelps were present in the northeastern Pacific Ocean by at least 32 million years ago. The organisms require nutrient-rich water with temperatures between . They are known for their high growth rate—the genera ''Macrocystis'' and ''Nereocystis'' can grow as fast as half a metre a day (that is, about 20 inches a day), ultimately reaching .Thomas, D. 2002. ''Seaweed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Highland Clearances
The Highland Clearances ( , the "eviction of the Gaels") were the evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly in two phases from 1750 to 1860. The first phase resulted from Scottish Agricultural Revolution, agricultural improvement, driven by the need for landlords to increase their income – many had substantial debts, with actual or potential bankruptcy being a large part of the story of the clearances. This involved the enclosure of the Open-field system, open fields managed on the run rig system and shared grazing. These were usually replaced with large-scale Pastoral farming, pastoral farms on which much higher rents were paid. The displaced tenants were expected to be employed in industries such as fishing, quarrying, or Kelp#Uses, kelp harvesting and processing. Their reduction in status from farmer to Croft (land), crofter was one of the causes of resentment. The second phase involved overcrowded crofting communities from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scottish Agricultural Revolution
The Agricultural Revolution in Scotland was a series of changes in agricultural practice that began in the 17th century and continued in the 19th century. They began with the improvement of Scottish Lowlands farmland and the beginning of a transformation of Scottish agriculture from one of the least modernised systems to what was to become the most modern and productive system in Europe. The traditional system of agriculture in Scotland generally used the runrig system of management, which had possibly originated in the Late Middle Ages. The basic pre-improvement farming unit was the (in the Highlands) and the fermetoun (in the Lowlands). In each, a small number of families worked open-field arable and shared grazing. Whilst run rig varied in its detail from place to place, the common defining detail was the sharing out by lot on a regular (probably annual) basis of individual parts ("rigs") of the arable land so that families had intermixed plots in different parts of the field. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cotter (farmer)
Cotter, cottier, cottar, or is a term for a peasant farmer. Cotters occupied cottages and cultivated small land lots. A cottar or cottier is also a term for a tenant who was renting land from a farmer or landlord. England The word ''cotter'' is often employed to translate the recorded in the Domesday Book, a social class whose exact status has been the subject of some discussion among historians, and is still a matter of doubt. According to Domesday, the were comparatively few, numbering fewer than seven thousand people. They were scattered unevenly throughout England, located principally in the counties of Southern England. They either cultivated a small plot of land or worked on the holdings of the . Like the , among whom they were frequently classed, their economic condition may be described as free in relation to everyone except their lord. Scotland Cottars were between a third and a half of the rural population of the Scottish Lowlands for the 17th and most of the 18 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
