Month: November 2016

We all remember the hard work of shawing the turnips or neeps by hand.  It was a cold wet and tiring job. Numb hands and a sharp knife could also make it a dangerous job. And the job could go on for day after day.

In the 1890s the Scottish agricultural implement and machine makers, especially those in the areas where large acreages of neeps were grown, looked at how they could try to remove the drudgery from this work. Some were well-known makers of implements; others were local blacksmiths.  They had the challenge of making an implement that could loosen the neeps from the drills in which they grew, tail them, and also top them.  And neeps didn’t grow evenly in the drill.  Nor did they grow to the same size.

If you were a farmer in Dumfries-shire and were looking to purchase a new threshing mill in 1895 you may have decided that you wanted to view them at the Highland Show which was held in the town of Dumfries in that year.

At the show there were 21 makers of threshing mills with a range of mills on display. A number of the exhibitors were local makers.  They included Andrew Boyd, Noblehill, Dumfries, Thomas Turnbull, Castlebank, Dumfries, and Charlton & Wylie, Dumfries. Further afield, from Ayrshire, were George McCartney & Co., engineers, millwrights and iron founders, Old Cunnock and John Young Jun, Mid Lowes, New Cumnock.  Other Scottish makers included R. G. Morton, Errol Works, Errol, Perthshire, and from Aberdeen the well-known Robert G. Garvie, Hardgate Iron Works, and Ben Reid & Co., Bon Accord Works. Shearer Brothers, Maybank Works, Turriff, had a foot and hand thresher. 

In 1889 Henry Stephens noted that “the part which drainage plays in agriculture can hardly be overestimated. Drainage, natural or artificial, is essential alike for pastoral and arable farming. Upon ill-drained land good farming of any sort is an impossibility.”

Winter was an important time for draining land on the farm.  Drain tiles were made by a number of tile manufacturers throughout Scotland, being a by-product of brick and tile works. Some noted brick and tile works were well-known and even renowned.  In the mid 1840s they included Robert Boyle, tile manufacturer, Ayr.  He exhibited at the Highland Show of 1844 a model of the improved Tweedale patent tile making machine.  By 1848 Alexander Cairns, Denny, Stirling, and George D. Dodds, Airdrie, were both exhibiting their own machines at the Highland Show.  Their numbers were to significantly increase in following years as the drainage revolution gathered apace on Scottish farms.

By this time a number of implement and machine makers were making draining tools.  Amongst the most important was William Cadell and Sons and Co., Cramond Iron Works.  Associated technologies also developed, such as the need for ploughs to assist in the draining work.  In 1848 George Ponton, Grougfoot was making a plough for filling in drains.

A century later the face of drainage on Scottish farms and on marginal land had changed dramatically.  If Scotland had led the way in the drainage revolution with James Smith of Deanston, it continued that innovation into the 1950s.  While there were a number of implement and machine makers in England that provided drainge implements and machines, including mole drainers, cultivators and trenchers, one Scottish maker came to have a great reputation: James A. Cuthbertson Ltd, Station Road, Biggar, Lanarkshire.

By 1952 James A. Cuthbertson Ltd manufactured a range of drainage tackle including a tractor drawn trench cutter suitable for tiles, pipes or cable laying, a trench cutter, Type F, suitable for plantation work, a Type S, double sided mouldboard tough , suitable for moorland draining and afforestation and sugar cultivation, the Type R, double sided ridging plough, designed for sisal grass plantations and ground preparation for cotton, groundnuts, and a hydraulically operated grab for use with the “Atlas” loader for ditch cleaning.

The company won a number of important awards for its drainage machinery including a silver medal from the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society for its drainage plough in 1948, another for its deep drainage plough with tile-laying attachment in 1950.  The company was also noted for its land improvement machinery including its bracken cutter which won a silver medal in 1949.  It entered other machines for the new implement award of the RHASS In 1948, including the grassland rejuvenator and lime spreader, its double-purpose double furrow forestry planting plough in 1949 and its lime-spreading outfit in 1951. It also developed the “Cuthbertson” half-track for Fordson Major conversion.  For his innovative work James A. Cuthbertson won an OBE in the New Year’s Honours list in 18953.

The company was eager to demonstrate its machinery.  James undertook a series of talks on farming and the agricultural engineer on marginal land in 1949.  The company widely demonstrated its machinery.  In June 1951 it advertised in the Courtier and Advertiser that it “will shortly have a hill drainage machine in the Milnathort/Dollar district.  Ground is inspected and quotations given free.”  In that month, another was on the ground in the Duns district of Berwickshire.

Scotland played an important role in the drainage revolution of the mid nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  However, you won’t see many aspects of that revolution at the rallies around Scotland.

For a comprehensive account of draining in 1889 see Henry Stephens, The Book of the Farm https://archive.org/stream/cu31924000275838#page/n295/mode/2up

© 2016 Heather Holmes

Preparing food for livestock was, and still is, an important job over the winter months.  Hay had to be cut from stacks, or silage taken from clamps. Turnips were to be sliced or pulped, though livestock could also be put onto fields to eat the crop straight off it.  Broke tatties were taken from the dresser and sometimes cut up as well.

The cutting, slicing and pulping of turnips were important jobs, especially for young livestock that did not have fully formed teeth.  In Scotland turnip cutters or slicers were especially favoured.  Some designs were used for many decades: the lever turnip cutters or lever ball turnip cutters of the 1860s were still found on farms after the Second World War.  They comprised a cast iron frame with bars through which a turnip was forced and sliced when a lever with a weight came down on top of the turnip.

By the mid 1870s the most important implement and machine makers in Scotland were making their own turnip slicers.  They included Robert Peddie & Co., Tynecastle Iron Works, Edinburgh, Andrew Pollock, Mauchline, Ben Reid & Co., Bon Accord Works, Aberdeen, John Wallace & Sons, Graham Square, Glasgow, Wingate & Lowe, Alloa, G. W Murray & Co., Banff Foundry, Banff, P. & R. Fleming & Co., 29 Argyle Street, Glasgow, Alexander Jack & Sons, Maybole, Kemp, Murray & Nicholson, Stirling, and A. & J. Main & Co., Scott Street, Port Dundas, Glasgow.

Most of their slicers were inexpensive.  In 1875 Alexander Jack & Sons sold lever turnip slicers for £2 2s.  Some models, such as one sold by P. & R. Fleming, sold for as much as £4.  Their designs varied so that they cut up the turnips into different sizes, and for either cattle or sheep.  There were also “improved” models, such as those sold by Ben Reid & Co.  By the mid 1870s some of the English makers were also designing, making and selling more complex machines.  They were ones that came to be renowned for their food preparing machines not only in England, but were also widely used by Scottish farmers: Harrison, McGregor & Co., Albion Foundry, Leigh, Manchester, Samuelston & Co., Britannia Works, Banbury, Picksley, Sims & Company Limited, Bedford Foundry, Leigh, Lancashire and Richard Hornsby & Sons, Spittlegate Iron Works, Grantham.  Their machines included double action turnip cutters as well as treble action turnip cutters.  But there was one design that was especially important: that of Gardener’s turnip cutter or Gardener’s patent turnip cutter.  It was already well used and renowned in the 1840s.

By the 1870s makers, such as Picksley, Sims & Company Ltd, were manufacturing turnip cutters in the “style” of Gardener’s turnip cutter.  Even by the outbreak of the First World War that machine was still being made and sold.  For example, A. & J. Main & Co. Ltd,
Edinburgh, was selling “Gardner’s sheep patent turnip cutter” for £5 10s.  The use of new forms on motive power on farms helped to improve designs and make the tasks of cutting, slicing and pulping turnips easier to undertake.  In 1914, John Wallace & Sons Ltd, Glasgow, was selling Mackenzie’s patent portable turnip cutter, with motor (an Amanco engine), for the sum of £31 10s.  Kenneth MacKenzie of Evanton, Ross-shire, was to become well-known for his turnip cutters and potato sorters.  Even at that time, the majority of machines continued to be manually worked ones, and were on wheels.

Their character was to change significantly.  By the outbreak of the Second World War most of the turnip slicers that were exhibited at the Royal Highland Show were fitted with engines.  Most of the turnip slicers at the Show in 1939 were fitted with engines: those by Harrison, McGregor & Co. Ltd, James H. Steele, Edinburgh, Barclay, Ross & Hutchison Ltd, Aberdeen, Bamfords Ltd, Uttoxeter, E. H. Bentall & Co. Ltd, Gillies & Henderson, Edinburgh, George Henderson Ltd, Edinburgh and Kelso, and William Elder & Sons Ltd, Berwick on Tweed. Later, they were powered by electricity.

The photographs were taken at the New Deer Show, 2014, and at Daviot vintage rally, October 2016.

© 2016 Heather Holmes

One of the big names in root cutters was Kenneth McKenzie of Evanton, Ross-shire, later Kenneth McKenzie & Sons, Evanton.

Kenneth was already a smith and farrier in 1903.  In 1922 he is recorded in trade directories as an agricultural engineer, a mechanical engineer, a motor engineer and a smith.  By 1955 he is denoted as an agricultural engineer, implement, machinery and equipment manufacturer and as a tractor and implement dealer.

By 1960 A. Laurie & Sons, Camelon, Falkirk, could state that it had been established over a hundred years. In 1922 trade directories record it as a smith, a trade that it continued in following decades. By 1935 it described itself as trailer and motor body builders, descriptive terms that it continued to employ until at least the early 1960s. Its work as a motor lorry and wagon builder had started around 1928, and in 1930 it had extended into being a motor car body builder.

The company changed with the times, and by late 1961 Alex Laurie & Sons had become Alex Laurie & Sons (Trailers) Ltd.

While it was a long-established company, it did not start to exhibit at the Highland Show until 1921. It sporadically exhibited during the 1920s and 1930s. It was not until after 1948 that it became a regular attender at the show, continuously attending in the following decades. Its interest in the agricultural market was reinforced by its advertising in the Farming News from 1945 until 1961 and the Scottish Farmer from 1936 until 1970 (though there may be later adverts).

In 1949 the company manufactured a range of trailers. These included a 30/35 cwt tipping trailer (balanced), a 50 cwt tipping trailer (screw), a 70 cwt tipping trailer (screw fitted with stock sides), a 3 ton low loading trailer, a potato trailer (Rae’s patent), a 5 cwt car trailer, and a 3 ton 3 way hydraulic tipping trailer.

The photographs of the Laurie trailer were taken at the Scottish National Tractor Show, Lanark, September, 2014.

© 2016 Heather Holmes

Back in the 1950s and 1960s when the great engineering minds were trying to develop a satisfactory potato harvester that would lift the crop without the need of squad labour, you still required a number of workers on the back of the harvester.  They lifted all the tatties off the moving belt which were taken away to the tattie box or trailer, leaving the large amounts of rubbish from stones, clods and rots to be conveyed and dropped back onto the ground.  The workers worked furiously: it was still hard work.  It was even worse when there was a damp bit drill and the whole drill came up the harvester and the tatties had to be removed from the drill sitting on top of the sorting table.  You had sore finger ends by the end of the day! And you knew about it!

Back in these days there were quite a number of attempts to develop a satisfactory harvester.  But many of the machines were large and complicated.  They were also heavy and cumbersome to work with.  The key was to get the design as simple as possible.

In 1966 Johnston’s (Implements) Scotland Ltd, of Colquhoun Street, Stirling, exhibited a potato harvester at the Highland Show, also entering it for the new implement award.  It was the Johnson/Underhaug model 1510 potato harvester, invented by Messrs F. A. Underhaug (Fabrik), Stavanger, Norway.  It was made by Messrs F. A. Underhaug in association with Messrs Johnson’s (Engineering) Ltd, and sold for £600.

This one row harvester was described as being “an entirely new concept in potato harvesters”.  It used the spinner digger principle for lifting the tatties from the ground.  The harvester was fully mounted to the back of the harvester, connected by the three-point hydraulic linkage.  A lifting share cut the bottom of the drill and brought the drill and its contents in contact with a spinning reel which spun the potatoes onto a cross-elevator where the surplus soil was riddled out.  Trash and haulm were removed at the top of the conveyor and stones deflected onto a cross-conveyor. The remaining contents of the drill was brought onto a sorting table, and the tatties removed from any waste that was brought up with them. They passed onto a trailer or bagging platform mounted onto the front of the trailer.

The harvester was a successful one for the smaller growers: it was extremely compact, lightweight, would work well on steep ground and in wet conditions, was very gentle on the tatties and and could be easily manoeuvred.  If you worked steadily with it you could harvest up to 2 acres a day.  It was one of the harvesters that was in production for a long period: its production was taken over and marketed by Ransomes as the “Ransomes Faun” and then by the 1990s it was sold by Kverneland as the Superfaun.

Ransomes marketed the Faun as the “handy harvester”, an appropriate name for a really practical harvester.  But you still had sore fingers from working with it.  They continued to be sore until stone and clod separation came along and revolutionised the tattie harvest.  But that is another story.

Source: Highland Show implement catalogue, 1966.

© 2016 Heather Holmes