Footsteps in the Furrow. Andrew Arbuckle
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rising tension around me. My father would go on a daily round of the fields nearest ripeness, taking an ear of grain here and another there, then rubbing them so that the individual peas lay in his hand. Next was the all-important biting on the grain to check for ripeness. Although we just about died of convulsions, my brothers and I dared not laugh when on one occasion this non-scientific testing caused a broken tooth.
Meanwhile, the men were busy hauling the old binders from the sheds, dusting them down and removing evidence of where the hens had perched and the mice had hidden over the previous months. The canvas sheets that carried the grain would be fitted and every grease point and the oil well attended to.
And all the time a watchful eye would be kept on the actions of the neighbouring farms, just to ensure they were not jumping the gun and starting harvest. If they started before you did, then they had obviously commenced harvest too soon. But if you started before them, then that was alright. When the decision to start was taken, and it was never taken until mid-morning after the early dampness had evaporated off the crop, the procession would wend its way to the first field.
The initial entry for this tractor-drawn machine that cleverly cut, then tied together bunches of wheat, oats or barley before spitting them out had been made. Men with scythes would carefully cut a strip 2 yards wide around the field to avoid too much loss of crop under tractor wheels. Thus, the first sheaves were not only hand harvested but also tied using straw. In pre-binder days, it was reckoned that a good scytheman could cut 1.5 to 2 acres of oats per day but this area was reduced if the grain had been battered to the ground by rain or vermin. The binder had a man on the back checking that the reciprocating cutter bar did not block and that there was no blockage of the revolving canvas sheets carrying the cut grain to the great invention, the knotter.
When it worked, this ingenious invention wrapped a thin piece of twine round the bunch of grain and then with a dismissive rotation of its fingers threw the sheaf out onto the ground. When the knotting mechanism did not work, and all that emerged were heaps of untied straw, there was always a poking into its innards accompanied by much muttering. My youthful joy at the start of harvest did not relate to the language used during the sorting of the various parts of the binder, although I do remember the words were often, as they say, colourful.
Sheaves were lying on the ground and the grain not yet fully ripe, so they were built into stooks to complete the ripening. The technique for stooking required picking a sheaf up in each hand and then putting one under each arm; the next move would be to clamp the two down together, intending to semi-bind the tops of the sheaves together, while at the same time ensuring the butt ends of the sheaves were correct. Five pairs of sheaves made a stook, which were always built facing due south so that the drying sun would get to both sides. If the crop was thin, it was not unknown for farmers to reduce the number of sheaves to only four pairs, as nosey neighbours could always see a sparse number of stooks, but they would not always notice the number of sheaves had been reduced. Stooking was not seen as a highly skilled job or one where great physical effort was needed. Often it was left to the women folk, the orramen and the loons to carry out the work.
The favourite crop to handle was wheat, although it was always reckoned to be ‘hard on the hands,’ but barley easily took the award for most disliked because the sticky awns would lodge in the sleeves and jackets. A close second prize in those irritation stakes were the sheaves containing thistles in the days before chemical weed control.
More annoyance was caused when the farm staff had to re-build the stooks blown over in a harvest gale. Often this would happen on a damp morning, thus producing a memorable combination of damp, soggy and sticky clothing. In extreme wet weather, temporary fences were erected in fields so that sheaves could be laid against them to dry.
There were other concerns when the sun was up. Stooking could be a hot, dusty job and one of the most anticipated perks would be the tin can holding the ‘oatmeal’. The simple recipe for this was plain oatmeal added to cold water. It slaked the thirst for the workers, who then left the boys to slurp the soggy, cold oatmeal.
After about ten days in stooks, when the grain had ripened and the ‘heat’ gone out of the straw, ‘leading in’ would start. This was a co-ordinated operation, with teams hand-forking sheaves onto carts. These were especially adapted by the removal of the normal sides and their replacement with straw ‘flakes’ giving a bigger area on which to build the sheaves. The carter always took pride in ensuring his building would not only look good, but would ensure there was no sloughing off, or loss of sheaves on the bumpy farm tracks leading to the stackyard.
Integral to the leading in the field was the boy, who would drive the tractor or lead the horse between the stooks – a job which required a gentle foot on the clutch pedal or gee-up of the horse. Any jerky start or stop would encourage an oath or two from the cart builder as he tried to keep his balance atop a cart full of sheaves.
For those in the field, the best and most remembered part of the day’s work was going home on top of the last load of the day. With a soft bed of straw below and the setting sun sinking over the horizon, it is part of harvest life that is deeply etched on the mind. Muscles were tired, but the satisfaction of the work done triumphed over the weariness.
The stack yard was always reckoned to show the wealth of the farm and the skill of its workforce. Thus it was the pride and joy of both employee and employer. A stackyard full of well-built stacks would be witnessed and admired all around the district. Weekends would see a gentle tour around the neighbourhood by men on their bikes and by the farmers in their cars. The skill of building stacks was one of the highest in the farm worker’s list. Curiously the advice given to stack builders was that passed on to those making roads: ‘Keep it braw and fou [full] and weel [well] rounded in the middle and the sides weel redd [tidy] and there’s nae [no] fear o’ ye’. The man with a reputation for building good stacks could always ensure an excellent fee from farmers, who not only valued the appearance of a good stackyard, but knew it helped ensure good-quality grain when the mill came around.
Sheaves were forked from the carts into the reach of the stack builder. It sounds simple and easy, but the sheaf had to be presented the correct way round and at just the right distance from the stack builder. He worked in a clockwise direction around the stack, with every layer called a ‘gang’. Any slackness in delivering the sheaves was rewarded with a torrent of abuse directed at the luckless forker, or craw, as the deliverer of sheaves was called. Thus, I learned a language to this day never repeated in school.
For the connoisseur, the stacks in Fife were built differently from those north of the Tay. To understand the difference it is necessary to know that the moving binder did not leave the finished article with a square butt end. There was a long end formed at the start of a sheaf; this unevenness helped with stooking and stability as the long ends were kept to the outside.
The stooking practice was common throughout Scotland, but when stacks were built, Fifers preferred keeping the long ends to the top at all times while Angus farmers took the opposite view, with the shorter ends uppermost. In both cases, the aim was to prevent rain entering the centre of the stack, thus spoiling the grain.
North and south of the Tay, topping out of a stack was common, with the topmost sheaf turned upside down and then folded over. Unlike other parts of the country, there seemed to be little ceremony about topping out a stack, perhaps because stacks were more commonplace in Fife.
For stacks that were to be kept through the winter, the next operation was thatching, which was intended to keep both grain and straw dry. Normally, long-stemmed wheat straw was used, but some farms on the coast used reeds. In both cases, the intent was to shed rain off the stack. In some East Neuk farms, old sails were used as short-term covers for stacks to be threshed before Christmas. To hold the thatch in place, ropes made from imported esparto grass were used. These ‘sparty’ ropes had no great pulling strength but were eminently suitable for thatching. And that is how the grain was stored until such a date as the farmer, or sometimes the banker, made a decision.
Threshing
Some 200 years ago, it was reckoned there were more than 300 threshing mills in Fife. It was claimed there was at least one