Thank you Charles for your comments. Times past were interesting . I remember that horse power on the next door farm was provided by a couple of pairs of shires. The plough, harrow and seeders were all horse drawn. Harvesting was done by a horse drawn reaper/binder which tied the corn into sheaves which the women and children would gather into “stooks” . These were later loaded on to horse wagon and off to the “Dutch barn” . I still remember threshing machines being pulled onto the barnyard by a traction engine and the harvested corn being bagged up. When Tractors arrived ( Strange orange painted Allis-Chalmers macihines with narrow front wheels, the original grey Ferguson which was ajoy to drive and the Fordson Major which was a pig) the horses didn’t last long . The arrival of the Combine Harvester and mechanical baler was the end of them.
Nights oil has always been used in the soil and urine collected for some processes eg cloth making
I found you can still get my grandmothers original rounding up hoe .Now called a trenching hoe from chillingtontoolsonline.co.uk
I have one and most people on my allotment site now have them!
