Ploughing with horses.

A long time ago, but yesterday too. Rain On My Window (Tears in My Eyes) will be an ongoing tale of my early memories of life shared by my younger brother David on Whitehall Farm in Stronsay, Orkney, of our childhood on a working farm in the 1930s before we lost our innocence.
by my younger brother David and myself on Whitehall Farm in Stronsay in the Orkney Islands, of our childhood on a working farm in the 1930s before we lost our innocence.
. RAIN ON MY WINDOW.
Morris Pottinger

Ploughing the Earth.

There is no old picture or painting of farming more evocative than a proud pair of horses ploughing the good earth. A horseman was as many times as not called a ploughman, even if he did in season all the other varied tasks of a farm. No part of his work was as open to the gaze of the public as his ploughing, there for all to see from the first furrow in autumn until it all vanished beneath the harrows come spring.
Each had his own pair of horses. I do not remember just how many ploughmen father had on Whitehall, I think four but it was a long time ago. There was the pecking order of the foreman first, the second ploughman next, and so on. A most definite social scale.
An old plough is simple enough to look at now but there was really a great deal to it. There were so many things to do in setting up the plough for the coming season. The front beam had an end bracket with holes up and across. This allowed the ploughman to set the pull of his horses just where he wanted to balance the plough and pull straight. He was to spend many days walking behind it and if he had the plough pulling just right then the physical strain was that much less. Some ploughs, though not all, had an adjustable wheel at the front which, if set right, helped to keep the depth of furrow. Most ones I remember had a knife blade coulter in front of the mouldboard which could be set in a variety of ways. Held on to the main frame by a bracket, this could be adjusted in many directions with it’s own spanner kept in a ring on the plough, along with an old hammer and a few iron wedges. Some had a disc coulter and there were many heated arguments among ploughmen as to which was the better.
The mould board itself was of many designs, primarily curved to turn over or invert the slice of ground. Some boards were better for lea ground out of grass, some for stubble or after turnips i.e. cleanland. Some ploughs could change boards as desired. Deep ploughing needed a special plough with a wider furrow and was done to break in virgin ground so the old turf could be buried deep.
The set of the mouldboard could be adjusted on some ploughs. For fancy work such as ploughing matches there was a sidearm from which a triangular heavy iron shoe weight hung by a chain and dragged between the last two furrows making an even smoother V-shape. At times it was used by ploughmen for ordinary farm work if he felt like it.
The local blacksmith had his part to play, doing any repairs or renewals, sharpening the various coulters, a new blade on some, a disc on others, making or sharpening a point for the plough, repairing or replacing a mould board, perhaps a pair of new wooden hand grips on the iron stilts, though some had heavy wooden stilts. There are still many ploughs around, some gracing a farm entrance, some over the garden gate, some at Mary Anne’s cottage or at Laidhay, well worth a look. We were only boys and did not do any ploughing except once I tried my hand at a very short furrow. At least I tried it.
There were many ploughs, long board, short board, high cut, Dux ploughs, Sellers ploughs, names from the past. Father had a double-furrow plough mounted on wheels at Airy on which the horseman, Wullie Stevenson o’Burragate, sat and guided his team of three horses. I remember going with father to see them get it going, it worked quite well but was a heavy pull.
Somewhere in the Orkney Archives in the Transactions of the Orkney Agricultural Society there is a pre war published talk on ploughing given by William Tait of Ingsay, my grannie’s brother. It is some time since I read it but the attention to detail and observation of results was quite incredible. His talk compared a wide range of horse ploughs, kinds of ploughing, the observed results of cropping from differing ploughs.
Ploughing lea from grassland was the most demandingly important. The furrows were seven inches wide and five inches deep. But to get the grass buried out of sight the ploughman set his coulter at an angle, undercutting the side of the furrow so it stood up at a sharp angle. The finished surface was that of V-corrugations every seven inches. I have always been fascinated that our early mechanized seed drills were spaced at seven inches, and think from William Tait’s talk that farmers found long ago the best crops were sown at that spacing. Though they did not use a seed drill as now we know them, the serrated furrows in lea gave the same effect, the seed falling into the furrow grooves and then being covered by the harrows.

The work was so precise. The ploughman set up his line of red and white striped marker poles, absolutely straight and measured to the inch from the side of the field, or preferably on the faint mark of an old ploughing finish. On this line he ploughed his first scratch, a thin slice of a furrow turned over. Then back, ploughing the next furrow shallow and overlapping the first so no grass or weeds showed to grow through the crop. The object was to leave the start as level as could be so there would be no ridge in the field to catch the binder at harvest. Across the field at Whitehall would be four teams at work, nobody hurrying but all at a steady walking pace. Turn at the ends, light a pipe perhaps, give the horses a breather, set off again. Ploughing matches today still give points for the straightest and best start, among many other requirements.
Then followed the general ploughing with the ploughman keeping the straightest furrow he could, well knowing it would be keenly inspected by friend and foe alike. Then the finish, a work of art, carefully adjusting the unploughed width so at the very end any deviation of his line could be corrected and leave a narrow five inch strip to finally turn over and say done.
Care of a plough was supreme. At day’s end the plough would be driven into the ground, there to sit upright until next used. This kept the mould board from rusting; though an additional method was to carry a small can full of soft grease hooked on a wire and a worn old paint-brush to put it on the mould board. With horses it was very important to keep the mouldboard clean and polished so the drag on the horses would be so much less. It is still important today even with tractors.

Some of the ploughing was of such a high standard it was almost criminal to harrow it down at seed time!! Taken to it’s ultimate the ploughmen vied at local ploughing matches, competed with ploughmen from other parishes, and there are still precious silver medals around won long go by someone’s grand-father, or even a prized silver cup, a beautiful token of a bygone age.