Springtime on the farm

Spring is the season of hope, the beginning of the farming year, when fields are ploughed and cultivated for planting of potatoes and sowing of seeds. Originally, this was done with the help of Clydesdale horses.  It was very important to plough a straight furrow, a matter of pride, because other farmers would walk miles on Sunday mornings to see how straight their neighbours’ furrows were.

After the Second World War, most farmers replaced their Clydesdales with a tractor. 

Sowing with a fiddle drill`

The fiddle drill hung by leather straps round the shoulders, and consisted of a woven sack containing the grass seed attached to the body of the drill.  The seed was metered onto the round-flanged disc, which was spun round, by the action of the leather bow against the spindle.  The bow shaped like a violin bow, was moved backwards and forwards, flinging the seed in an arc onto the ground.  This method of seed sowing was very tricky as the walking speed and the bowing action, together with the calibrated machine governed the rate of seed sown.  

Planting Potatoes

Tom Pearson, from Plasket Lands built a potato planter to fix on the back of the tractor, which could plant three rows at a time, instead of walking up and down the stitches carrying the heavy potatoes in a bratt.  

The planter was very simple.  It was a large wooden box, big enough to cover three stitches, which was supported behind the tractor.  Between the box and the tractor, Tom, wife Ida and daughter Helen sat on a seat with their legs dangling in the stitch. Tom’s son Jack drove the tractor.  The box was filled with seed potatoes and they, using both hands to take the potatoes from the base of the box, dropped them one by one into the stitch. 

To keep the seed at the correct planting distance the family sang all the songs they could think of – keeping a strict tempo. Popular songs, music hall numbers even nursery rhymes and hymns.  It was all very enjoyable as they were a tuneful family; not like work at all.

The Pearson family at Plasket Lands.

Adapted from ‘Plain People’

Holme St Cuthbert History Group, 2004.