There was a time, in Charles Kingsley’s words, when all the world was young and all the trees

were green. The first sound of Spring for me in those days was the gentle metallic ring of the

field roller, the roller drawn by one horse, the driver walking behind. Backwards and forwards

they went, the whole length of the field, flattening all the humps and bumps of winter, leaving

its characteristic plain and pearl pattern. The discs had the ring of a distant angelus, as it were

Just as the whistling boy evolves into the responsible family man, so, in due season, the new

grass matured into hay and in June or July the mower would come to harvest it. The mowing

machine was drawn by two horses, the driver sitting on an iron seat, usually made more

The field ran along by the river which divided one farm from another. We often called it “the

long field” because of its being some ½ mile in length. Probably, in ancient history, it was the

site of the village butts, where the villagers would have practiced their archery. Before the

invention of firearms, the long bow had been the main weapon of warfare for 30 – some say 50

– thousand years. Historians say its invention ranks in importance as a cultural development,

with the discovery of the art of making fire. For the English it has its place of honour in our

history because of Agincourt and all that. And in the previous century, in the little town of Crecy,

the English bowmen, for the first time in Continental warfare, established established the

country as a great military power. Is this when the seed of the English belief in their superiority

Because of the length of the field and the uncertain weather (ideally they needed five fine

days) it was cut and made in three parts. When the mower had finished cutting and the

uppermost side of the swathes were dug, the swathe-turner would turn the swathes. This was

a one-horse machine with the driver riding. If the weather held, the hay could now be hauled; if

not, it had to be made up into large mounds known as cocks for further drying. When the

wagons came to haul the crop, the hay was pitched up on pitch-forks by men each side, to the

man building up the load on top. Rope lines were thrown round the loaded wagon, and on one

To haul this heavy load to the farm, a trace horse was harnessed in tandem with the shaft

horse. The skilful bit was to drive with as much momentum as possible up the steep slope

through the 10 ft wide gate, and rein the lead horse round before it got to the ditch on the far

side of the road. This was a manoeuvre I liked to watch. The wagons were trundled up through

the village on iron tyres and into the rickyard where the hay had now to be pitchforked off into

the barns. The shaft horse could enjoy an ad lib feed of new hay, and a boy (or a girl) would

All this hard work is now done in a day or two with large tractors and trailers. Silage making

has obviated all the anxieties about the weather. But no wagons in summer days and evenings

rumble through the village from farm to field, loaded with excited children. Just recently, an

octogenarian lady recalled how the farmer would lift some of the small ones into the wagon,

and how she could remember the smell of the horse and the rhythm of its great haunches.  Nor

are bread and cheese and cider lunches enjoyed in the hay now. The story goes that two farm

workers having such a meal behind the wagon were overheard to say “What you think of this

cider, George ?” “Oh, I don’t know, Tom, I don’t knows. I s’pose if ‘t’ad been any better boss

Some of the men who helped to get the hay in, and worked ‘til dark had already done a day’s

manual work, but turned out after tea these summer evenings mainly for the cider or a load of

dung in the autumn, and, though they wouldn’t admit it, partly for the sweet, unforgettable smell

The field above the hay field, which, unlike its neighbour, could now suffer the annual

inundations of the brown floods of January and February, was the “plough field”. Here, in

Rupert Brooke’s words were the “strong, wet ploughlands scarred for certain grain.” There

were occasional rotations of roots which we didn’t like, but usually it was wheat which grew

The ploughing was done by a man and two-horse team. On wet days the ploughman would

drape a sack over his shoulders for extra protection. Unlike the vast prairie lands of

Saskatchewan under the plough, whose appalling size meant that a man and horses could

plough only four furrows a day, here in our much more modest acreage of up hill and down

dale, and dragging the plough round it every turn, it was even more physical. It was a good day

to complete an acre, and that meant walking eleven miles. I once said to a man who had done

some ploughing, that when I retired I would like to acquire a pair of horses and have a go at it.