Newspapers sometimes provide commentary pieces on the state of agricultural implements and machines. They sometimes reflect on the change on them over a period of years, including the significant progress that has been made. Others reflect on how some aspects of implement and machinery development have not proceeded as fast as others. This was noted for the case of cultivating implements in 1908. On 5 October that year, the Aberdeen press and journal, carried a reflection piece about the development of modern cultivating implements. It is worth quoting at length for the observations that it provides on the different technologies and spring cultivating implements. It refers to Wren Hoskyns – Chandos Wren-Hoskyns – an English landowner, agriculturist, politician and author (1812- 1876) who wrote for the Agricultural Gazette and the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England.
“Modern cultivating implements
Science has not as yet succeeded in revolutionising cultivating implements. It has only substituted steam for horses, and it is probable that we shall shortly see motors in more general use on farms, or even electric currents distributed from centres, and actuating ploughs and harrows, or substitutes for these implements. The motive power is, however, secondary to the implement employed, for it matters little whether a plough is drawn by bullocks, horses, or steam-it is still ploughing, and no thing else. The share or the mould-board maintain their place, as do also the roller and the harrow. A wire rope and an engine do not transform the work of ploughing, and a field ploughed or cultivated by steam is disappointingly like a field ploughed or cultivated by horses. There is greater power, greater rapidity, greater depth, it is true and the work may be more effective in some cases, but the time-honoured methods are still used, inferior only to the still older spade, which is looked upon by many as the perfection of a cultivating implement. The agriculturist (says the “Daily Telegraph”) is only concerned with the efficiency and economy of the work done, and to him the power is only important with respect to its comparative cost. Various methods of superseding the old tillage implements have been patented and subjected to trial, but as a rule, have failed to enlist sufficient support. From the time of the learned and accomplished Wren Hoskyns onwards examples have been seen of rotary forks, spades, and prongs, designed to pulverise the soil at one operation, and to emulate the mole by leaving a similarly finely-divided tilth behind their path. These ideas are, however, not new, for all the approved systems of cultivation are based upon old methods, so far as the treatment of the soil is concerned. Still, the motive-power is important, and with regard to it the horse is extremely difficult to displace. He offers advantages which are fully brought out upon the land, even in days when motors, tramcars, railways, and flying machines threaten to banish him from the highways. He ensconses himself in the trackless field, and finds support in rain and snow, and amid the many difficulties which beset valuable machinery exposed to mud and mire. He is ready in a minute, and does not require his attendant to get up steam. When done with, he is put in the stable. He requires no repairing, and is not subject to breakages. He can be used singly, doubly, or three or four together, and the partnership is easily dissolved, and requires no special contrivance. He deteriorates only through natural decay, after many years of activity, and is capable of reproducing his kind at little expense. As a force on farms he has not yet been superseded, and does not seem likely to be at present. Wherever roads are good or the surface is firm and smooth, traction-engines and motors may supersede the horse, but this is not in all cases so as regards his application to land cultivation. Among improvements in actual cultivating implements, the spring-tooth cultivator has taken root very firmly of late years. Double and triple ploughs, chill-breast ploughs, rhomboidal harrows, and broad shearers are now much used, and the double-furrow plough has cheapened the work as to become a formidable rival to steam power. The old-fashioned heavy cultivators have disappeared, or been consigned to back premises, and modern cultivating implements are gradually displacing the old combinations of wood and iron. Still, in accordance with the old adage, “Call a spade a spade.” It cannot be denied that a plough is a plough “for all that”, and a harrow cannot be made more than it is. Economy in draught and efficiency in work, lightness and strength of structure may be had, but the time-honoured processes of ploughing, rolling, harrowing, and cultivating still go on, actuated by horses for the most part, and by stream in certain circumstances. “
