Never a day goes by without lorries hauling something in or out of the farm.
Produce and supplies can now be moved the length and breadth of the country with relative ease, although at substantial cost.
Before the age of the truck, railways could do the same. However, in most cases access to train transport required haulage to the local station by farm vehicles.
The odd farm did have its own sidings if located next to the tracks, but in the main it was double handling from the farm transport on to railway wagons although in the case of livestock it could be walked there or back.
The arrival of steam-powered road transport started to address the problem. Many of the early steam wagon operators focused on industrial work or coal or mineral haulage, but agriculture did benefit from the early machines built by Sentinel, Foden, Leyland, Mann and the Yorkshire Steam Wagon Co.
There were even the odd Scottish steam lorry builders in the early days, such as Halley of Yoker in Glasgow and Belhaven of Wishaw.
Steam wagons tended to be used by larger companies, with the individual farmer still delivering to the station by horse and cart.
However, following the end of the First World War an abundance of war surplus lorries and vans found a ready market with contractors, who then began to make serious inroads into the freight rail market.
Lorry ownership spread during the inter-war years, and often the lower operating costs helped in the Depression, even after several Government tax changes kept operators on their toes.
During this period farmers began to take up lorry ownership for their own use, and some even got into the contracting business.
Early farm lorries tended to be smaller affairs of between 30cwt and four tons, perhaps being used on the farmer’s milk round or to take fruit and veg into town.
Petrol was the most common fuel for vehicles of this era, with pioneer diesel engines mainly being used in larger trucks.
Fuel rationing during and after the Second World War had a big impact, but farmers could get extra rations as their transport was vital in food supply.
Indeed one farmer’s daughter in north-east Fife used the farm’s Austin K4 lorry to get around petrol shortages for her car to go to a dance in Largoward.
Farmers could also get an allocation to buy a new truck, many of which were now in military specification.
Craigie Farm at Leuchars had a Bedford OW with the austerity square bonnet, and it came into the line of fire when delivering straw for papermaking at Guardbridge Paper Mill it was strafed by a German raider aircraft and riddled by bullets which narrowly missed the driver. Sadly, the attack also inflicted casualties at the village’s primary school.
At the end of hostilities British industry was in full flow, but mainly producing goods for export to earn revenue for a cash-depleted nation. This made sure the British truck industry was kept going, despite surplus second-hand vehicles flooding the market.
Newer and bigger trucks gradually became available for farm transport, either for farm-owned vehicles or the large number of contractors who were operating.
In this area of the country, farm lorries hauled a wide range of produce. The sugar beet industry had a huge impact, with each campaign seeing hundreds of lorries of all ages, sizes and types in the queue for unloading at Cupar, and many bringing back a load of beet factory lime or sugar beet pulp for cattle and sheep feed.
Livestock transport benefited from road haulage, and many will remember the old cattle floats with open tops sometimes covered by tarpaulins, the double hinged back door ramps, and gates hanging on the side of the body.
Indeed one of these open-topped floats overturned at the War Memorial in Cupar, releasing its load of cattle on to the street.
Flatbed lorries were used to deliver the large amount of tractors and farm machinery being bought by farmers.
Many farmers constructed loading ramps to offload the new machines.
The post-war period probably saw the greatest number of farm-owned lorries, many of which were six-cylinder, petrol-engined affairs from the likes of Bedford, Ford, Austin and Morris.
Diesel-engined lorries, often fitted with a Perkins, included Dodge, Seddon and Vulcan.
Larger lorries manufacturers, some with their own design of diesel engines, included Leyland, Albion, AEC, Atkinson, Foden and ERF.
Another major factor in road haulage was the nationalisation of road transport by the Labour government in 1948. This saw the individual contractors swallowed up and their fleets turned out in British Road Services (BRS) red or green trim.
Later this nationalisation process was reversed and contractors started up again.
The arrival of the combine and bulk grain handling also had an impact on farm lorries as bigger payloads of threshed grain could be hauled by dedicated contractors.
While the lorry driver may not have liked manhandling 2cwt bags, he would have a long wait for his 15-ton truck to be filled by a six-inch grain auger.
Palletisation in future years would also lead to a much less labour-intensive life for lorry drivers.
Milk, too, benefited from bulk methods with the switch from milk cans picked up from the road end to tankers emptying the bulk tanks taking place in the 1960s.
During the 1960s many farm lorries became outdated and were not replaced as outside operators did the hauling. These operators had the larger, more modern and in many cases more specialised trucks for the job.
The old farm lorry often had the cab scrapped and the platform turned into a bale trailer for the tractor.
By the 1970s the increasing purchase, operating and taxation overheads meant many farms giving up lorry ownership.
Those that remained took to contracting to offset the higher costs.
Some of today’s large fleet operators owe their existence to the humble farm lorry that started the business.
Today, modern high-speed tractors capable of hauling large loads do a great deal of the haulage of farm produce.
So the next time a bright new multi-axled artic which was probably built in Europe arrives for a load of grain or cattle, spare a thought for the old slow, non-power-steered, noisy, draughty and often overloaded farm lorry.