The newspapers in Scotland recorded the introduction of a number of implements and machines. These accounts provide an important historical record that shows where, when and who first introduced them. They also highlight the reaction to them, including the amount of attention given to them.
There are reports of a number of trials of these implements and machines. They include the first combine harvester. The following account from The Scotsman, on 2 September 1932, records the first trials in East Lothian:
“Combined harvesting machine
On the farm of Cairndinnis, East Lothian, owned by Lord Traprain, a new combined harvester completed successful trials this week. A similar type of machine has been used extensively in Canada and America, while several have been operated successfully in England, but this is the first occasion on which this thresher has been tried in Scotland.
The machine, which is drawn by a Caterpillar tractor, has a crew of four men, and eliminates the laborious work of stooking, pitching, stacking, and threshing, and thus saves loss from rats and stacks. It can be adapted, as in other countries, to merely cut off the heads of the grain or the straw. The machine, which has a 12ft cut, does the work of four reapers. By its use the grain cut can be placed in the granary on the same day, and therefore a great deal of risk consequent upon bad weather is avoided. When the grain is cut it is taken up by conveyor belts to the threshing machines, the straw and chaff being discharged by means of a window at the rear. The grain, which is dressed, emerges at the bagging platform, and can be graded into three different grades. The machine is operated by one man who drives the tractor, one on the header watching the knife, and two on the bagging platform who fill and tie up the bags with grain and place them in a shute holding four bags, which can be immediately released by pressing a lever.”
