crops require a large number of elements in their growth, there are four main ones that affect fertility: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and calcium. Two hundred years have passed since farmers learned these vital pieces of crop husbandry, but even in the late 1920s, the educationalists were still promoting the need for good fertiliser usage. In 1928, a meeting was held in the Corn Exchange, Cupar to promote nitrogenous fertiliser and the latest technology was available to ensure farmers got the message. The reporter noted, ‘The cinematograph was operated from a van containing a dynamo from which current was conveyed via a cable to the cinematograph machine.’
Initially crop growers would use ‘straight’ compounds that contained the four vital elements. In the late nineteenth century, the North of Fife Farmers Supply Association (NFFSA) was buying fertilisers with these basic elements. The Transactions of the Association were written in copperplate and show precisely how much of each fertiliser was traded. As a provider of nitrogen, nitrate of soda was bought from Messrs Cunningham, Edinburgh for £12 12/6, or £12.63 per tonne delivered to the required local station. Among the dozen farmers buying this nitrogenous fertiliser was David Berwick of Collairnie, who bought 2 tons, 1 cwt, 2 qrs and 11 lb, or 1.88 tonnes. His neighbour, John Bell at Glenduckie, only purchased 1 ton, 12 cwts and 15 lb, or 1.51 tonnes. Note the precision in the billing with every pound accounted for.
Other pages show purchases of super-phosphates made by treating mineral phosphate with sulphuric acid. This manure was cheaper and the farmers seemed to buy it by the ton. Bone meal was also bought. This time the supplier was a merchant from Montrose at a cost per ton of £815/- (£8.75), delivered by train. As the name suggests, it comes from grinding down bones after the fat and gelatine have been extracted. There was also a large trade in dissolved bones delivered in bags from a merchant in Edinburgh to the local railway station.
The potash element came from Leopoldshalt Kainit, which as the name suggests was imported from Germany. Farmers requiring this manure were required either to uplift it from Tayport harbour following its importation by Messrs Hutchison, Kirkcaldy, or to have it delivered to their railway station. The price per ton was 50/- (£2.50) off the boat or 54/- (£2.70) from the railway vans. Although the direct trade in potash had long been finished, it was a shortage of potash from Germany during World War II that impacted most severely on crop production.
Later, as it was shown that different crops had different demands, these straight compounds were then mixed by hand on the loft floor. Those who have carried out this task recall several features, but all mention the ammonia smell that caught the throat, especially when one was breathing heavily from the hard physical work. After mixing, the bone meal sprinkled over the heap as this light, fine powder helped stop the mix coagulating into large un-spreadable lumps.
Prior to mechanisation, this mixture was spread onto the land by hand using a canvas sheet harnessed to the front of the human spreader. Working methodically up and down the fields, the spreader would take handfuls of fertiliser and scatter it on either side. The spreading method was similar to that of sowing crops right back into Biblical times. Men took a pride in being able to apply fertiliser evenly over crops in widths up to 6 yards apart. To this day any farmer or farm worker worth his salt can tell a badly fertilised field by the telltale strips. The spreading sheets were kept full by loons, or boys with buckets working from the sacks dropped off in the field.
Those who have spread fertiliser this way testify to the fact that it was both a hard and unpleasant job. The handling of acidic fertiliser soon made it clear where the cuts and hacks in the spreader’s hands were located. One cure was to find spiders’ webs and twist some of the web into the cut. Cobwebs were also used to help control lesions on milking cows’ teats. To add to the agony, on a windy day in spring the dust also blew into the spreader’s eyes as he scattered the fertiliser.
Lime spreading was also bedevilled by wind, with the workers covered in a fine grey dust in even the slightest breeze. But recognising the importance of lime to the land, the British government heavily subsidised its application throughout the time when production of food was important. At one point in the 1950s, some 70% of the cost of lime was being met by government subsidy.
The post-war years saw the arrival of compound fertilisers, which as the name suggests, combined the main ingredients. The idea was that farmers could then buy the most appropriate fertiliser for their crops. Compounds with high levels of potash were needed for the potato crop; those with high percentages of nitrogen were preferred for grass and cereals.
In the early days of artificial fertilisers many farmers judged the fertiliser by its smell, going on the theory that the more it smelt like well-rotted dung, the better it would be. They soon got over the smelling phase and concentrated on the quality of the fertiliser. In the early days it was not unusual for the heavy-duty hessian sacks full of fertiliser to go solid. Sledgehammers and strong words were then used to break the fertiliser back down into the little pellets suitable for the spreading machinery.
After use, the fertiliser bags were washed ready for re-use and on a windy May day the fences near the horse trough were used as washing lines. Nowadays, fertiliser comes in 1-tonne sacks and is transported from lorry to shed and then to field by forklift, untouched by a labouring hand.
DEEP in every countryman’s bones there must be a mechanism that jumps onto alert as harvest approaches. Even in my youth, I would feel the 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
