We know how prices for produce affect farmers’ spending power as does the weather and its influence on the crops. There are the “bumper years” like the tattie boom years of the mid 1970s which allowed potato farmers to invest in new technologies and introduce them on their farms.
There are some accounts in the Scottish newspaper press which comments on these and other impacts on Scottish implement making and the demand for implements and machines. One such account in the daily record and mail, 26 December 1908 notes the importance of a favourable spring and haytime on the implement making trade:
“Agricultural implements
Notwithstanding the general depression in engineering and other trades agricultural implement makers have had quite a normal year. Various reasons account for this, the principal ones being the favourable weather in spring, which allowed full use of all kinds of cultivating implements to be made, and the prospects which farmers had of a good hay and grain harvest. These encouraged them to purchase harvesting machinery freely. Although manual labour is very plentiful at present framers seem to prefer labour-saving implements rather than employ more hands. All these reasons combined are meantime tending to create a steady demand for all kinds of implements and implements. The home makers are sharing more fully in the home trade, the severe competition from American firms, experienced a few years ago, having slackened considerably.
The conditions of trade mentioned apply not only to Scots, but also to English and Irish implement makers. At the recent Smithfield Show, the annual meeting place where trade for the past year and prospects for the coming year are discussed, the feeling seemed to be one of satisfaction.
The foreign demand for implements has also been normal during the year.”
