With seed time just around the corner, most farms will hopefully have all their seeding and cultivation tackle at the ready for the spring offensive
Before winter cereals accounted for a large proportion of the cereal acreage, the oncoming offensive would be a much more frenzied affair. With a larger area to sow, and often in very changeable conditions, many men and machines were needed. All ploughing would be complete, except perhaps for fields with turnips not pulled or eaten off.
Early ploughing was preferred on most soils to let winter frosts break down the soil into a firm, friable mould.
The quality of ploughing was also vital, hence the rise of ploughing matches and the scorn directed at bad ploughing.
A vast range of cultivation tools were available before today’s almost obligatory one-pass machines.
In the days of the horse it was basic sets of harrows that could pull down the furrows to make the seedbed.
Harrows came in a variety of formats, from the heavy, curved-tine brake harrows to the more standard zig-zag pattern types.
Harrows also came in spring-tine format in both the horse and tractor eras.
Disc harrows were very popular for a while especially in the tandem form. They could be used in spring seed-bed preparations, and some of the heavier examples could be used on stubbles too.
The arrival of the light spring-tine Triple K type cultivator from Kongskilde of Denmark changed things during the 1960s, while UK manufacturers like Cousins and Blanch made levelling harrows to offer other three-point linkage alternatives.
Later, more sophisticated levelling harrows with spring tines to remove wheel tracks, levelling bars and crumble rollers came from Scottish manufacturers Grays of Fetterangus and Hay.
For heavy soils the arrival of machines like the David Brown Albion Rotary Tiller, the SKH Crumbler and the Bomford Dyna Drive all provided extra ammunition.
However, it was the arrival of Lely’s Roterra and all the subsequent makes of power harrow that really helped make seed beds quickly on heavy soils.
Another important machine on the cultivation front was the humble roller, which was used to break down clods in preparation and to consolidate the seed bed once seeding was complete.
Quite often the worked ground was given a roll in front of the seed drill to firm it up. Rollers working in front tended to be the flat or smooth type, while often the final roll after seeding was done by a ringed or Cambridge roller.
Although the operation of rollers and harrows was deemed straightforward enough for the laddie to do, great care had to be taken. Unsuspecting drivers could be caught out by turning too quickly with trailed harrows, only to have the leaves join him when they were lifted by the tyres on to the mudguards.
Wide three-gang rollers often caught out unwary drivers, who left it too late before turning. Broken fence posts and tangled wire provided proof of their misjudgment.
Hitching from transport to working widths and vice-versa was also a skill.
This ‘top work’ was often carried out with crawler tractors that spread their weight evenly without leaving deep wheel ruts.
Cage wheels from the likes of Catchpole and Bettinson helped, but tractors fitted with them were no use for the road until the idea of a dual rubber-tyred wheel took off.
With seed bed formed, it was time to sow.
Originally, seed was broadcast by hand from a sheet tied around the waist.
However, the seed drill was the quicker and preferred method for many.
The drill is one of those iconic machines whose importance to farming merits its place in history.
Although Scotland, through Bell and Meikle, gave us the machinery to reap and thresh the crop, and James Small gave us the improved plough to create the seed bed, it was Englishman Jethro Tull who gave us the drill much earlier in 1701. It has to be said the reason for Tull’s development of the drill was to have most probably root crops grown in uniform rows to allow horse hoeing, a practice he promoted.
Following Tull’s death in 1740 his idea of a seed drill fell out of favour.
However, between 1780 and 1790 some 13 patents, including many from Scots, were obtained for seed-sowing machines.
Subsequently seed drills developed along local lines to suit conditions and crops, one of the most famous being the Smyth’s of Peasenhall of Suffolk drill which lasted until fairly recently.
Suffolk gave its name to a certain type of coulter used on many drills. Disc and cultivator coulters were also used, with the disc type common in Scotland due to the higher stone content.
Eventually seed-drill design settled on full-width machines with end wheels fitted to the narrow seed box to provide the drive to force the seed down the tubes and into the soil opened by the coulters. These machines could be anything from 4 to 8ft wide, with 11, 13 or 15 coulters.
They had a draw pole fitted for a pair of horses, which in many cases was eventually converted into a draw bar for tractors.
You could always tell an old horse drill by the grooves on the lid of the seed box where the horseman’s reins had rubbed as he walked at either side to see if he was straight to the previous run.
These types of drill had a wooden footboard at the back. In the days of the tractor, the old gaffer would often ride on it, checking for choked spouts and helping to fill it with fresh seed. Choked spouts, missed bits and squint drilling meant ridicule for months to come.
Fertiliser boxes were latterly fitted to produce the combined or combine drills, and often a set of harrows was pulled behind to cover the seed before the crows got to it.
Following the war seed-drill design gradually evolved, with some of European origin entering the field such as the Bamford Octopus, Falcon, Tume and Carier models.
New techniques such as direct drilling were also tried.
However, for many years the king of drills was the Massey Ferguson 30 which was made right up until the metric age, latterly with hydraulically folding transport wheels and markers and tramlining kits.
Today it is a very different affair, with a solitary tractor operating a one-pass power-harrow affair or pull-type cultivator drill in a much lonelier springtime rush.