English draft horses at work 1930’s/40’s

[clayfoot-sandyman]

Beautiful old images of horses at work ploughing, carting, harrowing etc in
1930’s/40’s England .

It’s from the website of ‘the Museum of English Rural Life’ in Reading.

http://www.reading.ac.uk/merl/imagelibrary/horses.html

Ed

P.S. The ‘Women’s Land Army’ photo’s are worth a look too – those old farmers must have thought they’d died and gone to heaven when all those young ladies started arriving on their farms during WWII!

[mitchmaine]

thanks ed, that was great. mitch

[goodcompanion]

Fantastic set of images. The ricks blow my mind. I still have it in mind to try building a rick on the farm, but I get edgy about the weather.

Here is a question for you Brits on the board. The question is maybe a little relevant to the pictures as it pertains to british ag history. I am looking for any information on the plowing (ploughing) method developed in the wet heavy lands of East Anglia. I have heard it described as layout of long narrow lands, each one a sort of quasi-raised bed, utilizing interconnected dead furrows to facilitate drainage, which was the limiting factor there as it is for me. I would be very grateful for any leads.

[Lingodog13]

The video “Harnessed to the Plough” by Farming Press, with Paul Heiney and Roger and Cheryl Clark was filmed in East Anglia. It has quite a bit of beautiful footage of ploughing there and explains the layout system they used. You can get copies of this through Diamond Bay Books, or you can request it through your library. I know that my library sends their copy of the video all over the U.S. Hope this helps.

[jac]

That type of plowing is called the “rig” or “runrig” system. Basicly involved making the areas plowed much narrower than later when drainage improved. Most of the them I’ve seen are about 4 or 5 yards wide. Up here in Scotland there is still a few fields that have the ridges. The field would be plowed the same way each year with the result that the landscape was permenantly shaped. Needless to say that a grass field with these ridges are a real pain with a mower.
Jac

[mitchmaine]

i have a 5 acre field cut off by a gully that i hay and have never plowed down. it’s laid out that same way with dead furrows 5′ – 6′ wide about 100 feet apart. i know it hasn’t been plowed in 40 years and my guess is that it’s much longer than that. and john’s right, it’s a pain to mow unless you run down with those furrows making one acre mowings. i keep planning to plow it out someday by turning soil into those dead furrows and end up plowing out the crowns, but so far not. it seems that whoever laid it out was trying to drain the field to that gully. not sure how well it worked as the field is low with heavy soil. good hay in a dry summer, tho. mitch

[Gabe Ayers]

The Eyke Sovereign colt we bought in England was from Cheryl Grover, formerly Clark. He was bred by the John and Fiona Fleming, in Suffolk and bought by Cherrie when he was two days old. She definitely put a good handle on him as a baby. He is growing here in the mountains of Virginia now.

~

Jason

[goodcompanion]

This forum is awesome. You have no idea how hard I’ve been trying to find a lead on this subject and now there it is. Thanks.

[dlskidmore]

I’ve read about these ridges before, but the claim where I was reading said that they were the result of early use of single-sided plows. Plowing with a single sided plow in the same ovals each year created the ridges over time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridge_and_furrow

[jac]

Denise that is true. However as drainage was none existant in the early days this was how they managed to grow crops. When proper drainage systems went in the farmer then plowed the opposite way each year and was able to keep the fields level.
John

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