The years following the Second World War continued to be difficult: there continued to be shortages of food, rationing, and problems with securing raw products and manufacturing products. However, it was also an important time for increasing mechanisation and the adoption of a range of new implements and machines including tractors, ploughs, milking machines, and combine harvesters.
The following reports record the statistics of the increase in mechanisation in Scotland in 1947 and 1948. They note the main types of implements and machines.
Increasing mechanisation (from The Scotsman, 10 January 1947)
The Department of Agriculture for Scotland issued the statistics on “Agricultural Machines and Implements in Scotland”. Increases are shown in practically all the main categories of mechanical aids and implements on the farm.
The number of tractors in use at February 4, 1946, was 23,580, compared with 20,510 at the same date in 1944. Although there is a slight decrease in single furrow-ploughs, which is not unexpected in view of the increasing use of multi-furrow power presses, there is an increase in the total of all classes of ploughs, the figures being 79,430 and 77,060 for 1946 and 1944 respectively.
During the two years there has been an addition of 700 milking machines in the country, the 1946 total being 7,930. Binders numbered 30,120 as against 29,370 in 1944, but perhaps the most impressive figure, although it is a small one, is that for combine harvester threshers, which have been more than doubled in numbers. At February 1946, there were 210 of these big machines in Scotland compared with 100 in 1944.
Progress of mechanisation (The Scotsman, 13 August 1948)
The Department of Agriculture’s return of agricultural machines in use in Scotland reveals the steady march of mechanisation in practically every item listed with the main exception of ploughs, but this is understandable, for the tractor ploughs can over-take so much more work per plough than the horse-drawn types.
The main increases of machines and implements are (1946 figures in brackets): tractors, 29,900 (23,580); petrol and oil engines, 26,010 (23,850); fertiliser distributors over 5ft wide, 18,330 (15,870); potato spinners, 14,230 (12,490), milking machines, 10.080 (7,930).
