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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

The Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland provided (as it still does) an important stimulus for the development of new and innovative agricultural implements and machines. In the past, an important feature of its activities was to hold trials. These included trials of potato diggers.

The Society’s first trial of potato diggers was held on 30 September 1871. A total of nine machines were selected for trial, most of which were both made and exhibited by the makers: Mallard’s Trent Foundry Co, Rugeley, Law, Duncan & Co., Shettleston, J. Bisset & Sons, Marlee, Blairgowrie, William Dewar, Kellas, Dundee, John Doe, Errol, John Hanson (entered by John Wallace & Sons, Glasgow), James Mollison, Ruthven, Meigle,
James Robertson, Coupar Angus, and Robert Stewart, Buttergask, Coupar Angus. It is interesting to note how many of these makers were Scottish, and more particularly, how many of them were located in the major potato-growing districts of eastern Scotland, especially Perthshire.

Following the trial, medium silver medals were warded to six of the exhibitors, five of which were located in Perthshire and Dundee.

The next trial was held on 18 and 19 October 1881 on the farm of
Hillhead, near Stirling. The judges considered thatt the trial was “very satisfactory both to judged and exhibitors, and that it was conducted in a thoroughly exhaustive manner.” They noted that “eleven machines appeared on the ground; the work, on the whole, was satisfactory, but the draught was in the opinion of the judges a great drawback to the whole of the machines, the lightest draught being 4 1/4 cwt up to 6 cwt under very favourable circumstances of soil. The judges would draw the attention of the makers of these machines to this objection.” Three awards were given: J. D. Allan & Sons, Culthill, Dunked (£15), William Dewar, Strathmartine, Dundee (£10) and John Wallace & Sons, 7 Graham Square, Glasgow (£5).

In 1911 the Society arranged a further trial of tattle diggers or lifters. Given the length of time since the 1881 trial, this was a much anticipated event, and an important milestone in for the development and improvement of potato lifters.

By this time the Society recognised the need to encourage the development of tattle diggers, more especially so as significant advances were being made in the mechanisation of the grain harvest. Entries were to be on “entirely new principles, or possess radical improvements on machines now in use.” Each machine was also to have been exhibited at the Highland Show in inverness in 1911.

Implement and machine makers took to the challenge and fourteen machines were entered for trial. Signifiant numbers of Scottish makers with outstanding reputations in making tattle diggers came forward: J D Allan & Son, Murthly, Alexander Ballach & Sons, Leith, J. Bisset & Sons Ltd, Blairgowrie, Andrew Pollock, Machine, John Wallace & Sons, Glasgow, and David Wilson, East Linton.

The trial, held at Turnhouse, Cramond, Midlothian, on 5 October 1911, was watched by a large number of spectators. The machines included some “novel” and “interesting” features. The machine from John Wallace & Sons had a rotating arm carrying the grapes or tines set at one side of the drill, and the tines were set so that they entered the drill laterally and lifted it up.

The judges concluded that the work done by all the machines was “fairly good” and “showed improvement as compared with the results obtained at the last trial.” However, there was no outstanding machine. As a result, equal premiums were awarded to machines from Allan, Pollock, Wallace and Wilson.

What the trial achieved was to stimulate the development in tattle diggers and to try to find ways to make diggers more effective. Like the 1881 trials, they went down in the annals of the Society’s work to encourage technological innovation.

The photographs of the spinner diggers were taken at the Fife Vintage Agricultural Machinery Club Farming Heritage Show and Annual Rally, June 2016.

© 2016 Heather Holmes

The tattle spinner was patented By J. Hanson, in 1855. By 1875 there were a number of makers of spinner diggers in Scotland whose names continued to be associated with that machine until well into the twentieth century.

They included J. D. Allan & Sons, Culthill, Dunkeld, J. Bisset & Sons, Blairgowrie, James Gordon, Castle Douglas, Andrew Pollock, Machine, Ayrshire (Later A. & W. Pollock), and John Wallace & Sons, Glasgow.

The 1950s was an important decade for the development of the complete or the mechanical potato harvester which could lift, sort and deliver potatoes into bags or into trailers.  If you were a Scottish farmer looking to purchase one of these harvesters you would have had to look to manufacturers outwith the country.

In 1952 makers included the Byfleet Machine & Tool Co. Ltd, of Byfleet, Surrey, with its tractor drawn “Thorn” potato harvester which put potatoes into a trailer.  Globe Harvester Co. Ltd, Wellington Road, Colney, had its tractor drawn “Globe” potato harvester which could deliver potato into bags or trailers.  Johnson (Engineering) Ltd, Elliot Road, March, Cambridgeshire had two models, its tractor drawn “Johnson” (worked by p-t-o or Petter engine drawn) and its “Johnson Junior”, p-t-o driven.  Mines Manufacturing Co. of Oxford, sold its “Minns” which could also be used for harvesting sugar-beet.  Modern Designs Ltd, Twyford, Berkshire, had the tractor drawn “Packman”, also powered either by p-t-o or engine driven. Root Harvesters Ltd, Fengate, Peterbough, sold the “Whistles”, a model that was among one of the well-known harvesters.  Wota Ltd, Wolverhampton had its “Wota-Crawford” tractor mounted machine.  Machines had an output of between 2-4 acres per day.

By 1963 the names and companies that were making complete potato harvesters has altered radically.  They included: Benedict (Agricultural) Ltd, Gordon V. Clark Ltd, Dominion Export Co. Ltd, Johnson’s Engineering Ltd, Logan Engineering Ltd, Massey Ferguson (U.K.) Ltd, Root Harvesters Ltd, John Salmon Engineering Co. Ltd, and W. T. Teague (Machinery) Ltd.

Despite the numbers of companies manufacturing complete harvesters by 1960, there were relatively small numbers working in Scotland. In 1960 in Fife there were 8 machines at work, while in Perthshire there were between 20-30 machines at work.  In 1961 in Aberdeenshire there were 28 machines in operation. In Angus there were at least 100 in operation.  Their number had increased rapidly in Fife, with 25 harvesters being used in 1961.  In Morayshire it was estimated that 40% of the crop was being harvested by machine.  There continued to be a further increased by the following year.  In the Lothians, one notable feature was the number of potato harvesters at work.  Mechanisation made important inroads into the potato field the 1960s.

Why the sudden increase in the use of the complete harvester in the early 1960s?  While there were continued technical developments, an important source of labour, that of school children, was being substantilally reduced by the education authorities, with the aim of ceasing the release of children from school after the 1962 harvesters.  The situation forced farmers to look at their labour requirements, and the source of labour for the harvest.  While some farmers decided to stop growing potatoes, others ventured into mechanical harvesting as the way forward for securing the potato crop. It was a big step to take.

Further information on the mechanisation of the potato harvest in the Lothians and Scotland is available in Heather Holmes, “As good as a holiday”: Potato harvesting in the Lothians from 1870 to the present, East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 2000.

The photographs show harvesting at Orchardfield, Wilkieston, West Lothian, October 1990.

 

© 2016 Heather Holmes

The tattle holidays are a well-recollected and remembered custom that took place in many rural districts.  However, there was another way in which children were released from school to help with the potato harvest.  This was by the “potato exemptions” or “tattie exemptions”.  They were just as important for releasing children from school attendance to work at the tattie harvest until 1962.

Whereas tattie holidays were given to all children in a school, or to certain years, tattie exemptions were given to individual children.  These children were permitted to leave school for a specified time while the school remained open.  They were usually given where there were fewer children employed at the tattle harvest, with other types of workers, such as locally employed women or Irish workers being more widely employed.

Schools and educational authorities often attached conditions to the granting of exemptions.  They included a high level of school attendance in the preceding year or evidence that the money from work at the tattle harvest would provide necessary financial assistance.  They ensured that the absence from school was both necessary and appropriate.

The ability to release individual children from school to engage in agricultural activities was permitted in legislation from 1878.  This was generally educational legislation, though legislation relating to the employment of children also had a role to play.

Exemptions were especially widely used during the Second World War when tatties were grown on an extensive scale and children were employed in large numbers throughout the country to harvest the crop.  With the end of the War and changes to the educational legislation in 1946 it was no longer possible to release children for work at the tattle harvest by means of the tattie exemptions.
Because of the important role that the children continued to play in harvesting the large acreages of crop, at a time when the food situation continued to be critical, special legislation had to be introduced that permitted their continued employment.  This was the Education (Exemptions) (Scotland) Act 1947.  It was an act to allow children over the age of 14 years to be released from school to assist in the tattle harvest.

The Act was a very hot potato.  There was widespread opposition from the educational authorities and educational unions at the continued employment of children at the tattie harvest.  Not all politicians were in favour of it.  Indeed, it was a politically very difficult act to bring forward.  So that it would get through Parliament it was designed as a short lived act, continued for one or two years at a time under the expiring laws continuance legislation. This approach ensured that the legislation was only used where there was a clear need for it.

The Government continued to carefully monitor the food and labour situations as well as the development of a complete harvester which would bring to an end the need to exempt children for the tattle harvest.  But though the Act was to fall after 1949, there was a continued need for the continued us of tattie exemptions.  Indeed, in 1950 some 37,000 children were granted exemption over a three week period to work at the tattie harvest throughout Scotland.

In following years the annual debates in the Commons were hotly debated, and rarely in favour of the legislation.  The number of exemptions were carefully monitored and numbers of exemptions allocated to each education authority.

By the late 1950s farmers had to look for other sources of labour before they would be given the services of children.  Numbers of exemptions were cut dramatically.  By the late 1950s, the Government announced that 1962 would be the last year exemptions were given to Scottish schoolchildren.  Thereafter, farmers would have to look for their own labour.

The tattie exemptions were a very hot potato, and much more so than the tattie holidays.  But while they were hotly debated in Parliament, their continued need showed just how important the employment of school children was at the tattie harvest in a large number of counties of Scotland well after the end of the Second World War, and also when other war-time measures had come to an end.

The photographs shows a squad of children at Blair Mains, Culross, Fife in 1990. They were employed during the potato holidays.

 

© 2016 Heather Holmes