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15th and 16th C
Early
19th C The Breed
Today |
Have you used any of these tools? Dug a drain? Tidied up a hedge? Thrown bales? Tell us how implements were used, or what life was like at the time they were used, or any real-life amusing story you may have to pass on.
recollection of how they made hay in the 1930’s in the North East of England. The equipment would include a) a scythe, b) a whet stone, c) a horse drawn mower attachment, d) a horse drawn rake, e) pitchfork, f) a hay bogey, g) a hay fork. When the grass field was ready for harvesting, the farmer would go through the gate into the field and using his scythe (which was two handled) would use his whet stone to sharpen it and then proceed to cut along the edge of the field so that the horse with the mower attachment would be able to travel over cut grass cutting from the field edge to the centre. To assist in drying the cut grass the pitchfork would be used to turn the grass. When the grass was dry, the horse-drawn rake would then be used to draw the hay into long lines. The rake had a trip mechanism so that when the curved tines were full the rake was raised and then dropped for collecting again. The next step was to create hay stacks, these were approximately 6 ft in diameter and 6 ft high. This was a hand operation using the pitch fork. The hay bogey which was a flat bed platform with a winch and chain at the front end, the flat platform was hinged. Backing the bogey up to a hay stack the platform was lowered so that the rear edge was touching the base of the hay stack. A chain from the winch would be taken around the base of the stack and reconnected to the winch. Then, turning a handle on the winch the stack was drawn onto the platform and as it passed it’s centre of gravity it resumed a horizontal level and self locked. The load was then taken to the Dutch barn in the farm yard where it was drawn up by the side of the barn. The special hay fork had two long tines which had a hinged section at the extreme ends, this was plunged into the top of the stack and a lever tripped to turn the ends through 90 degrees and using a horse the load was lifted up via a series of pulleys and swung into the barn where it was evenly distributed, several times this was done until the last of the stack was cleared from the bogey. As can be imagined this was a long and tedious operation and the collection of the stacks and loading into the barn may well have taken more than one day. n.b. prior to the horse drawn mower attachment, the field would have been hand cut. Ronnie In the advert for the 3rd meeting of York races on the Knavesmire
in AJ Kay has anyone compared the Welsh sheep counting Ek, do, tin, cha, panchh, che, sat, ath, nau, das. (OK my spelling is probably not good but it is not a Greco-Roman script anyway) (WebMin: for comparison, the Welsh numerals: un, dwy, tair, pedair, pimp, chwe, saith, wyth, naw, deg!) it looks somewhat close. What is this count? Hindi! As Hindi is a derivate of Sanskrit, I believe, Alan Clatworthy When I started working on a farm in West Yorkshire in the 1950s [early] any sturdy, thickset and strong, big pony or small horse, was called a gallowa'. Not Galloway you notice, but the connection is plain. Hundreds of such ponies were used on the milk rounds that many farmers ran in those days, and when the milk was delivered the Gallowa' was amply strong and game enough to tackle such jobs as light carting, harrowing, scruffling [weeding between rowcrops] and of course as a trap pony. Many farmers of my aquaintance relied on their Gallowa' to get them home, the worse for wear after a day at the mart and a little too much of the hard stuff! 
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The Farming Year Animal
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