No 9. Horses, Masters of the Harvest,

RAIN ON MY WINDOW, TEARS IN MY EYES. Morris Pottinger publ. Groat 9th Feb 2008
No 9. Masters of the Harvest or CUTTING CORN WITH HORSES. 4th Oct. 2007
. Harvest, which takes pride of place in the farming year, was the only time celebrated by special recognition with a harvest home, or “Muckle Supper” as Stronsay called it. But harvest in my early days is worth a very special mention as it was entirely done with horses. At Whitehall crops grew all too well, especially lea oats after clover-rich grassland. Then one night of wind and rain and in the morning these glorious crops lay flattened and bent all over the place, “stooked” as they called it though still uncut.
As ripening drew near but not quite ready for the horse-drawn binders, the farm men each took down his own scythe from the rafters of the loft where they had been safely stored since last year, razor sharpened the blade with easy double sweeps of a sharpening stone, stuck their scythe-stone in their hip pocket, and off to open up the fields, cutting “roads” as we called it. These roads were single strips round the outside of every field the width being about five feet wide, a scythe cut, making an opening for the horses and binder to follow. The rhythmical sweep of the scythe in the hands of an expert was soporific, a dance of movement, each alternate foot shuffling six inches forward, the arms smoothly swinging the scythe from side to side all day, first to the right in preparation, then a full stroke to the left cutting with a sharp sibilant rasping sigh a six inch slice of crop and delivering it on the left by a lifting flick of the scythe blade. There the row of cut corn-stalks was gathered and bound into sheaves by a helper (binder) and tied with a band of enduring strength made with a twisting flick of the wrist from a handful of straw. Backbreaking bending work. Set them upright against the wall or fence with the head of grain to the top, the stubble butt ends on the ground, leaving an open track ready for the binder Additional to that many badly laid patches of crop were cut out with the scythe and stooked on their own prior to the binder coming in.
These old time binders were pulled by teams of either two or three horses, drive being taken from a large ground wheel and with a cutting width generally of five feet. A shaft pole held the two horses in place, a breast beam across their chests strapped to the underside of the hems around the front of the horse’s collar. Any third horse was harnessed by an auxiliary rig alongside the other two, all three horses being cross tied to each other and kept in line by a cats cradle of light rein ropes.

The binders had transport wheels for negotiating narrow gates and roads, taken off for cutting and left lying beside the gate until needed, making it narrow enough to go along farm roads and through narrow gates. Fully raise the binder on it’s big wheel with a fitted ratchet screw jack, sometimes putting a large stone or batten of wood under the wheel to save a bit of work, set the transport wheels in their locating notches with drop latches to hold them in place, lower the whole assembly to the ground, take the shaft out of it’s socket in the front and set into a socket in the outer end of the binder platform, rehitch the horses and on to the next field. The whole machine was wonderfully balanced so a man or two could easily tilt it one way or the other to do these various changes.



The man on the binder had well trained horses who kept their line and allowed him to adjust the various levers to make and shape the best sheaves possible, a busy task in a bad harvest and a very skilled job indeed, the binder twine band just in the right place above the midway balance point, the butt end shaped to just the right angle, the sheaf not too small, not too big, adjusted by setting a spring loaded trip lever. Some binders had only one man aboard, worked well enough in a standing crop but in a tangled flattened crop lying in every direction two men were needed, a man walking with a pitchfork behind the binder platform to help the crop to better lie for the two elevator canvasses, or help it on it’s way with an upward pull. Sometimes a man walked beside the sheaf delivery end pulling one tangled sheaf from the next so they lay on the ground singly for the stookers. And woe betide the man who did not properly separate these tangled sheaves. Without that man sheaves at times lay tangled together in long strings and had to be pulled apart by the stookers. I do remember some fields on Whitehall being cut at least in part with a reaper as the ground was too wet for the binder’s ground wheel and it merely slid along with no driving grip, or bogged down entirely. Or the crop was too tangled. The reaper had historically preceded the binder and some smaller farms or crofts in my early days still cut their patch of oats with a reaper, every sheaf having to be tied by hand. These machines were called back-delivery reapers and again two men, one for the horses and one gathering the crop on a tray until he had enough for a sheaf, then dropping the gathered straw off the back using a wooden angled hand rake to keep everything in order for the followers to bind, hence back-delivery. Slow work but surprisingly all got done.
The binders had a cutting width of 5 ft with a reciprocating bladed knife guided within three inch spaced fingers, a platform canvas and upper and lower elevator ones. These moved the cut crop across and up to the sheafing mechanism, and they stuck many a time with tangled crops, tore the canvas or the leather straps, broke the thin wooden cross slats, two sets needed for every binder, one on, one off for repair. A man could spend an entire cutting harvest in the loft repairing one canvas and down to the field to exchange it for another. Sometimes an entire evening had to be spent getting canvases ready for next day. Quite an art using new repair canvas of different widths, new slats, new straps, new rivets. Fiddly work. On the other hand there could be a harvest with perfect conditions, everything working well, sheaves neat and tidy, few repairs. Not too often though.
The crops were usually cut a bit on the green side as it could be better done while still standing and not waiting the risk of further storm damage. Some said the greenish straw ripened in the stook, at least it dried out.

And so the horses were the Masters of the Harvest at Whitehall until 1938 and the Massey Harris Pacemaker Tractor came to Whitehall with the Massey Harris 8ft cut power drive binder. Roads around the uncut fields were still cut by scythe but a little bit wider for the tractor. Then the big moment. One man on the tractor, one on the binder, no cabs then of course, just the open air and a good ex-army overcoat. The very first great advantage was being able to turn the mechanism of the binder by the power drive of the tractor while standing still. This allowed clearing of stuck canvases which was far ahead of the horse days when a man had to take a handle and turn the whole works, if he could. Sticking or blocked canvases still occured but it was easier to deal with by the tractor power drive moving everything.

The speed of cutting was staggering though do not think the horses were all that slow, I guess there were more horses with more binders and more men so overall speed of work was much the same. We boys just could not get to the field soon enough to watch, but severely and correctly told to keep well away from the machinery. During the War a fellow school boy in Stronsay had his leg cut off below the knee by a reaper at a nearby farm, of which our father never tired of reminding us. The tractor could also be driven over the ground at various speeds but keeping the standard power drive at 540 revs per minute so thin crops and thick crops could be the better catered for. Tractor driven binders were usually wider than in the horse days but over 8ft cut was not too useful as the cut corn tended to move head first into the elevators and made sheafing more difficult. It was known for long platforn binders to be shortened, and we had an originally 8 ft horse drawn ground wheel driven binder at Greenland Mains shortened from 8ft to 5 feet and a drawbar fitted for the tractor to pull. .At that width it was a wonderful binder for opening up a field for the tractor, going round first one way, then reverse it and come back when it easily. picked up the flattened crop from the first round, and we did away with the scythe opening roads round the field.
Other than that there was not really all that much change in cutting the crop from the horse days.