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One of the important jobs to prepare the land for spring was spreading dung on the land.

In 1908 Stephens’ Book of the Farm wrote: “carting manure-in hard frost, when the plough is laid to rest, or the ground covered with snow, and as soon as “By frequent hoof and wheel, the roads A beaten path afford”, farmyard manure is carried from the courts, and placed in large heaps on convenient spots near or on the fields which are to be manured in the ensuing spring. This work continued as long as there is manure to carry away, or the weather is suitable.”

We associate ploughs with their place of manufacture: Sellar of Huntly, Newlands of Linlithgow, Gray of Uddingston, and Cruikshank of Denny are well-known examples.

Cruikshank & Company, Denny Iron Works, was a long-established company, but did not start to manufacture agricultural implements, including ploughs, until much later, into the early twentieth century. As a general iron founder, it set up an agricultural department by 1923. In 1960 this was referred to as the “agricultural supplies department”.

The company started to exhibit at the Highland Show in 1933, thereafter being a regular exhibitor until at least 1970. It was also a regular advertiser in theScottish agricultural press, in the North British Agriculturist and the Scottish Farmer.

In 1950 its ploughs included tractor ploughs, horse ploughs, plough shares and spares. One of its well-known models was the two furrow bar pointed “the Dandy”.

Its other manufactures included automatic hitches and adjustable hitches, tubular rail divisions, cattle drinking bowls, grain lifters, tractor rollers and cast iron, malleable and steel agricultural castings.

There are still a few Cruikshank ploughs around. You may see the popular “the Dandy”.

The Cruikshank plough was exhibited at the Scottish National Tractor Show, September 20915.

Horses were starting to play an important role in Scottish agriculture in the second half of the eighteenth century. James Small’s horse plough, based on the Rotherham Plough, brought a revolution in ploughing and ploughing by horses in Scotland. However, oxen continued to be used on some farms and the tradition of usiing cattle continued into the twentieth century in some areas of the crofting counties.

In the twentieth century the rise of the farm tractor brought the demise of ploughing with horses. It was not until after the Second World War that tractors really started to make inroads in Scotland. On some farms horses continued to be used alongside tractors, sometimes being confined to the lighter jobs.

Donald Murray of 60 East Gate, Inverness, described his business as an agricultural merchant and commission agent in 1889. He was one of a number of implement makers and agents in the town in that year. He continued in business until at least 1911.

Donald was keen to promote his business. He had a stand at the Highland Show in 1901 and 1911 when it visited the town. At the two shows, he exhibited a wide range of implements and machines from the leading Scottish, English and American makers, bringing the latest developments to Highland farmers. In 1901 they included spring tine cultivators from Wm Nicholson & Sons and Massey Harris, broadcast sowing machines from Wm Elder, horse hay rakes from McCormick and W. N. Nicholson & Sons, hay and clover tenders from Barford & Perkins, hay forks and elevators from Ogle & Son, mowers and reapers from Harrison, McGregor & Co., binders from Massey Harris Co., corn crushing and grinding mills from Harrison, McGregor & Co., cake bills from W. N. Nicholson & Sons, chaff cutters from Harrison, McGregor & Co., corn dressing machines from John Baker Ltd, kibbling mills from Barford & Perkins, patent hand and foot threshing mills from Shearer Brothers, and sack weighing machines from W. & T. Avery.

In 1911 Donald continued to sell manufactures form most of these makers. By that time he was also selling petrol engines from the Briston Waggon Vo., as well as Lister cream separators, gardner’s patent turnip cutting machines, Ransome’s ploughs and a number of potato diggers from Allan and Ransomes. Donald provides evidence that farmers and other agriculturists in the Highlands could locally purchase implements and machines from the leading makers and through them advance agriculture in the region.

If you are at a rally in the Highlands, have a look out for the Murray nameplate. The name plate was photographed at the Daviot Vintage Rally, September 2013.

One of the tasks for feeding livestock in the winter was preparing and mixing food. In 1889 Henry Stephens noted that the preparing of pulped mixtures made food more pleasant for their palates and more easily digested. The principal ingredients for pulped mixtres was turnips and fodder, but there could also be some crushed cake, maize-meal or bruised grain with a sprinking of salt and sometimes treacle.

The grain was bruised or ground into meal. According to Stephens, “farmers may have their grain bruised or ground for stock-feeding at any of the country meal-mills; or, which is much better, they may have it done at the steading by one of the many first-class little mills now made for the special purpose.”

By the 1890s Scottish and English implement makers had, according to Henry Stephens, “lately given much attention to the devising and perfecting of machines for bruising and grinding corn, and there are now in the market many admirable machines or mills of this kind.” He commented that “about a dozen leading firms have given careful attention during the past two years to the perfecting of grist-mills for farmers, and they have succeeded so well that their mills leave little to be desired in their working. In the improved modern grinding-mills the stone has been supplanted by metal plates, which can be replaced at will, and which render the mill more serviceable. … As would be expected, grist mills require considerable power to work them, and this has to be supplied by steam, water, or horses. ”

If you were a farmer or an agriculturist looking to purchase a oat, bean and malt bruisers and crushers or mills for grain and cake in 1886 you could have chosen a machine form a number of makers in Scotland and England. Most of the makers were English – reflecting their extensive making of heavy agricultural machines for processing crops. They included well-known names: Picksley, Sims & Co., Leigh, Richmond & Chandler, Manchester, W. N. Nicholson & Son, Newark on Trent, Albion Ironworks Co., Rugeley, Barford & Perkins, Peterborough, Charles Burrell & Sons, Thetford, Jeffrey & Blackstone, Stamford.

There was a handful of Scottish makers. James P. Cathcart, Buchanan Street, Glasgow had a new corn grinding mill, selling at £20. R. G. Morton, Errol, Perthshire, made a range of patent grain and spice grinding mills. Its model 8 cost £22. Henry Stephens was impressed at Morton’s mill, describing it as “a modern and very ingenious mill.” He adds, “like a certain historical article of furniture, “contrives a double debt to pay’, for it either crushes flat or grinds into meal, as may be desired, doing both perfectly and with great rapidity.” J. & R. Wallace had two models of oil cake mills of different sizes (14 and 16 inches).

Corn bruisers were made by a number of Scottish makers: G. W. Murray & Co., Banff, had a range of corn busier, with his no. 2 selling for £7 7s. The Strathmore Agricultural Engineering Company, Coupar Angus, also had a range of bruisers of different sizes, with a small one selling at £11, an a medium one at £13. Thomas Turnbull, Dumfries, made a strong corn bruiser with smooth rollers, 12 inches long and 8 inches in diameter. Another Scottish maker was J. & R. Wallace, Castle Douglas, with two models of corn crushers with a safety spring attached, each selling for £9.

Scottish implement and machine makers were not important makers of bruising and milling machines, but they played a role in supplying these machines to farmers. However, there are still a number of them still to be seen around the rally fields. You may also see some of the machines from the renowned English makers which specialised in them.

The photographs were taken at Scotland’s Farming Yesteryear, September 2013.

Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies, Ipswich, and other companies were aware of the potential for the development of small tractors and associated implements and machines for the crofter and small holders. Ransoms brought out its MG series of tractors to meet this need, manufacturing implements for them at its premises at Crostorphine in the early 1950s.

In Scotland agricultural engineers were also looking at the same problem. On 3 April 1954 the Falkirk herald carried an article which reported: “The first “baby” tractor, designed and built specifically for crofters and small farmers, has been produced at Bonnybridge. Delivery of the first production model was made last week to a farmer in Argyllshire. It is made and assembled at the St Andrew’s Engineering Works, Bonnybridge. Apart from the three horse power petrol engine and the tyres, the tractor is of entirely Scottish manufacture. Designer Mr J. M. Rollo, to whom the Works belong, is drawing on the facilities of his Easdale and Inverasdale factories to make parts of the implement but the bulk of the work is done at Bonnybridge, where a new building has been erected for the project. Mr Rollo made personal delivery of the first sale and demonstrated its capabilities on the purchaser’s croft. He claims that his “baby” can perform the same tasks as larger tractors; its size recommends its use on smaller farms. It is expected, from a recent survey, that the Scottish demand for an implement of this kind is likely to be in the region of 200 a year. It is also expected that there will be a considerable market for the machine in the export field. An anonymous donation to the Highland Fund of £10,000, for the purchase of 50 of these tractors, to be distributed to individual crofters, has enabled production to get into full swing right away. The machine is to be on show at the Industries Exhibition which is being held in Glasgow in September. Its features include independent front wheel suspension and the plough is raised and lowered hydraulically. In every respect it is similar to the larger tractors. There is a river’s seat, and a light weight trailer, made of synthetic wood, is available for transport purposes. An acre of land can be ploughed on a petrol consumption of two gallons. The implement is known as the olio Croftmaster.”

The Rollo Croftmaster was first exhibited at the Highland Show in Edinburgh in 1955. Rollo Industries Ltd continued to exhibit it at the shows in 1956 (Inverness), 1957 (Dundee) and 1960 (Ingliston). It was entered for the new implement award of the Highland Show in 1956 as the Rollo Croftmaster tractor fitted with new Rollo patented plough mounting linkage. The tractor cost £190; the hydraulic lift and patented plough linkage cost £30 and the mounted plough £18 10s.

Later examples were made by Barrmor Tool Works Ltd, St Andrew’s Works, Bonnybridge.

There are still one or two Rollo Croftmasters around the vintage machinery rally fields in Scotland. Keep an eye for them. They provide quite a contrast to the larger farm tractors!

The names Andrew Pollock, A. & W. Pollock and Pollock Farm Equipment Ltd are famous in Ayrshire and indeed around the world.

Pollock Farm Equipment is celebrating 150 years of Pollock in Ayrshire in 2017. As part of its 150 year celebrations the company is planning an open day with exhibits of vintage Pollock equipment. If you have any old Pollock implements and machines, Pollock Farm Equipment would like to hear from you.

If you read one of the major agricultural texts for the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, you will note the use of a number of interesting plans that were used to feed livestock. These included gorse and whins.

In 1889 Henry Stephens spoke highly of gorse and whins. He wrote: “Like many other useful and beautiful plants ingenious to this country, furze-in some parts called whins, in others gorse-is not so highly esteemed as it ought to be, perhaps on account of its value of furze being so common, and of its tendency to grow where it has not been sown and is not wanted. Nevertheless, as food for cattle, sheep, and horses, it possesses very considerable value, and for this purpose it may be grown in any part of the country with success, financially and otherwise.” He added that “the value of furze is as a green food for the winter months. It should be cut at least once every year, so that the plants may not be allowed to become woody and hard. When sown thickly on fairly good land the shoots come up fine and juicy, growing to a length of from 2 to 2 1/2 feet.”

If you were a farmer in Scotland in the mid 1850s you may have been interested in the latest developments in steam cultivation. In April 1853 members of the Fisken family demonstrated their water and steam plough on the farm of Drumphin, parish of Wester Foulis, Perthshire. Further exhitions were held in following years, as before the Stirling Agricultural Association in August 1856.

But it was a machine developed by an English farmer, William Smith of Woolston, near Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, whose steam cultivator was the first one that came into commercial production that was used by Scottish farmers (there were others such as Boydell’s). Smith’s design was a simple one. As the Perthshire advertiser states in 1856:

“[Mr Smith] works his implements by men’s of a common seven-horse portable engine and a stationary windlass, fixed at one corner of a field. A couple of wire ropes are led from two drums on the windlass in opposite directions round four anchored pulleys, and meet at the implement, thus passing all round the field-two anchors being fixed and two shifted from time to time along each headland as the ploughing proceeds. The anchors are like large four-toothed rakes, and it requires a man at each end of the work to dig holes and shift them forward, Mr Smith uses cultivators of a peculiar kind, taking about three feet breadth at a time; and he has an ingenious and quick mode of turningthem at the end of the furrow. He is able to scarift or baulk plough on an average four acres per day of twelve hours.”

Smith leased out production of his steam cultivator to a number of different engineering companies between 1857 and 1871. Between 1859 and 1861, they included J. & F. Howard, Bedford. By 1958 the Edinburgh Evening Courant could note that “the two really competing inventions are Howard’s (of Bedford) windlass and wire-rope cultivator (on the system of Mr Smith, of Woolston), and Fowler’s steam plough”.

Smith advertised his tackle in the Scottish press, including the Aberdeenshire and Perthshire newspapers in 1858, and in the North British Agriculturist in the following year. When smith transferred production to J. & F. Howard, that eminent company started to advertise Smith’s tackle, sometimes with its own manufactures, and at other times on its own. Its advertising started in 1860 and continued in 1861.

Howard bought out the production of Smith’s tackle, making its own improvements to it. Howard started to manufacture its own “Howard’s new patent steam cultivators”, which it continued to advertise until 1865. In time Howard developed its own steam cultivation engine and tackle, based on Smith’s cultivator. This was launched in 1876.

J. & F. Howard was a prolific advertiser of its steam ploughing tackle in the Scottish agricultural press between 1859 to 1881. Its early adverts focused on the number of sets of tackle that it had sold, their geographical distribution, and the advantages of the systems.

Scottish farmers used both Smith’s system and Howard’s system. The Marquis of Stafford (later the Duke of Sutherland) used “Smith’s steam plough, manufactured by J. & F. Howard, Bedford” at New Tarbat in 1858 (in the following year there were 40 sets at work in England). Howard’s tackle was more widely used. In August 1861 the Scottish Farmer reported that some “four or five sets of Howard’s steam tackle for ploughing or cultivating that have yet found their way into Scotland”. In 1862 the first set of ploughing tackle introduced into East Lothian, by Mr Sadler of Ferrygate, was a set of Howard’s. Its introduction was widely celebrated.

The steam ploughs of John Fowler, later John Fowler & Co. (Leeds) Ltd, also made a significant contribution to the steam ploughing and cultivation scene in Scotland, and came to dominate it. That is for another day.

The William Smith of Woolston tackle and the Howard’s farmer’s engine and round-about tackle were exhibited at the World Ploughing Championships, September 2016.

In 1929 James Ferries & Co., Inverness, exhibited the “Marvel” threshing machine at the Highland Show. It was invented by James Ferries. It was made from well-seasoned pitch pine, morticed and teoned and firmly secured at the joints by bolts, The linings are of white-wood or red-wood. The Scotsman described ts working parts:

“There are three shakers running the full length of the mill, and mounted on a three-throw crank-shaft, which is run on ball bearings. The centre throw of the crank-shaft is so designed as to convey motion to the riddle-casethrough a long connecting rod. The riddle-case is built in one part, and is so constructed that the chaff and cavings are delivered underneath the straw delivery shute. The light grain is delivered from a spout at the tail end of the riddle-case, while the finished sample of grain is delivered at the drum-end, where it can be conducted into elevators either for bagging the grain or delivering to a loft. The fan is fixed between the mill frame, and is the full width of the machine. The elevators are urge cup and belt type, the grain being fed into the elevator from the sprout attached to the riddle case.”