The Horse in the Furrow

by George Ewart Evans

  A report7 made recently by the Economic Commission for Europe confirms that the horse is not likely to disappear from agriculture in the foreseeable future and draws the conclusion from a study of the figures that the present decline in horse numbers may reach a point where increased mechanisation will not meet all agricultural needs. This is already true of many of the farms in the heavy land districts of East Anglia. Fanners have discovered that a pair of horses are invaluable for certain processes when it is impossible for a tractor to go on the land. A farmer of heavy land in Suffolk is able, if he still has a horse or two, to drill his spring seed much earlier than his neighbour who has only tractors: he can use his horse-drill when the land is too wet for the tractor to go near it. The same applies to harrowing and hoeing.

  In the Fen districts of East Anglia where large crops of vegetables are grown, horses are still used in fairly large numbers for hoeing, carting and harrowing; and there is an additional reason in the Fens why the horse is likely to be in demand for many years to come. The land there is usually well below the level of the road, and in wet conditions only a horse is capable of drawing a load up the short, sharprising ramp to the highway. A tractor is quite useless for this job during the greater part of the year. Similarly, the usefulness of the horse for carting jobs on farms in Suffolk is continually being rediscovered: for tractors bog themselves down in conditions where a horse can draw a loaded tumbril with comparative ease. The Suffolk horse is ideal for these marginal jobs: his relatively low food-intake keeps maintenance costs to a minimum, and the absence of feather on legs makes him easier to keep clean in the muddy conditions in which he is proving indispensable.

  To sum up: in pointing out the likely place of the horse in the farming of the future one does not want to indulge in any backward-looking mysticism or to imply that the tractor is the ‘villain of the piece’. The tractor is both the implement and the symbol of the machine age of farming, but not until the social and technical implications of its use on the land have been fully taken into account will the tractor be doing an unfettered job and working at its full potential. Even then it is probable there will still be a place for the horse alongside it.

  One conviction kept intruding itself upon the writer while he was collecting the material for this book: ‘You are only touching the fringe of the work that needs doing.’ This is the sort of inquiry that should be conducted by a team, backed by a university and having considerable resources at its disposal.

  Representatives of at least four universities have in fact been working in East Anglia in recent years (Cambridge: archaeology; Leeds: the dialect, and agricultural history; London: folklore; Leicester: local history). But this is no substitute for a planned and co-ordinated study of the area undertaken by one university. The dialect, the farming history—including the study and collection of old farm tools—the folklore and folk-culture of the region are too interrelated profitably to be studied apart. Dr W. G. Hoskins of Oxford, in his pioneer studies of the history to be traced in an actual landscape, also in his work on the history of domestic architecture, has started a vigorous school of open-air historians who are as much concerned with the actual, physical area studied as they are with the books and documents concerning it in the libraries. This type of approach, extended to embrace the oral tradition and conducted by a team organised by a single university or school of studies, is most likely to be fruitful in East Anglia or any other homogeneous region.

  1 Y.A.G., p. 196.

  2 The ox is never wo

  Tyll, he to the harowe goo.

  3 Rene Dumont, Types of Rural Economy: Studies in World Agriculture, Methuen, 1957, p. 387.

  4 The Times, 1st September, 1958, puts the proportion even higher: ‘There is (in Britain) one tractor to every 38 acres of arable land.’

  5 East Anglian Daily Times, 3rd December, 1957.

  6 C. S. Orwin, The Future of Farming, Oxford Univ. Press, 1930, p. 128.

  7 Effects of Farm Mechanisation on Horse Numbers in European Countries, United Nations, Geneva, 1958. See pp. 19, 48–9.

  SELECTED WRITTEN SOURCES

  Biddell Family, The, The Biddell Papers, Ipswich Borough Archives.

  Biddell, Herman (Editor); The Suffolk Horse Stud Book, Vol. 1, 1880.

  Cullum, Rev. Sir John, History of Hawstead (Suffolk), 2nd edition, 1813.

  Darby, H. C., The Domesday Geography of Eastern England, Cambridge University Press, 1952.

  Ernle, Lord, English Farming Past and Present, Longmans, 1922.

  Evans, George Ewart, Ask the Fellows who Cut the Hay, Faber and Faber, 1956.

  Finberg, H. P. R. (Editor), The Agricultural History Review, The British Agricultural History Society.

  Fox, A. Wilson (Assistant Commissioner, Royal Commission on Agriculture), Report on the County of Suffolk, 1958.

  Frazer, Sir James, The Golden Bough, Macmillan.

  Fussell, G. E., The English Rural Labourer. Batchworth Press, 1949.

  Haggard, Sir H. Rider, Rural England, Longmans, 1902.

  Hole, Christina, English Folklore, Batsford.

  Payne, Ffransis, Yr Aradr Gymreig (The Welsh Plough), University of Wales Press, 1954.

  Peate, Iorwerth (Editor), Gwerin (A Journal of Folk Life), Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

  Ransome, J. Allen, The Implements of Agriculture, 1843.

  Ransome, Sims and Jefferies (Ipswich), Archives and publications, notably: Ransome’s ‘Royal’ Records, 1939.

  Raynbird, Hugh and William, The Agriculture of Suffolk, 1849.

  Reyce, Robert, The Breviary of Suffolk 1618, edited with Notes by Francis Hervey, Murray, 1902.

  Seebohm, Frederic, The English Village Community, Longmans.

  Spence, Lewis, Myth and Ritual in Dance, Game and Rhyme, Watts, 1947.

  Trevelyan, G. M., English Social History, Longmans, 1942.

  Trow-Smith, Robert, English Husbandry, Faber and Faber.

  Tusser, Thomas, Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, edited by Dorothy Hartley, Country Life.

  Vesey-Fitzgerald, Brian, Gypsies of Britain, Chapman and Hall.

  Vesey-Fitzgerald, Brian (Editor), The Book of the Horse, Nicholson and Watson.

  Watson, Sir James A. Scott and May Elliot Hobbs, Great Farmers. Faber and Faber, 1951.

  White, Directory of Suffolk (for articles on nineteenth-century agriculture.

  Wright, Joseph, English Dialect Dictionary.

  Young, Arthur, General View of the Agriculture of the County of Suffolk. Third Edition, 1804.

  FILMS

  The two following films, both directed by Mary Field, were made in the Peasenhall district of Suffolk in 1935. They are strongly recommended for the accurate picture they give of certain aspects of Suffolk farming prior to full mechanization:

  This Was England

  Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter on the Farm

  (a Series)

  Both films were made, and are distributed, by G. B. Instructional Ltd.

  Index

  Acre, day’s ploughing for ox-team, 1; Roman, 1;

  Welsh; 1; 2

  Agriculture, revolution in, 1; traditional knowledge of, 1;

  Royal Commission on, 1, 2

  Agrimony, common, 1

  Aldeburgh, 1, 2

  Alderton, 1

  America, 1, 2; American visitor to Playford, 1, 2

  Antimony, black, 1

  Arabia, 1, 2

  Archaeologia Cambrensis, 1

  Armour’s (Chicago), 1

  Ashes (for land), 1

  Austin, S., 1, 2

  Austria, 1

  Autobiography of a Farm Labourer, 1, 2

  Bait (or meal), 1; baiter, 1, 2;

  b.-sieve, 1;

  baiting-house, 1

  Bakewell, Robert, 1, 2

  Barham (Sorrel Horse), 1, 2; drawing of, 1

  Barker, James (ploughman), 1, 2

  Barking (Suffolk), 1, 2, 3, 4

  Barnum and Bailey, 1

  Barthropp, Nathaniel, 1

&nb
sp; Battisford, 1, 2, 3, 4

  Baylham, (Baylham Hall), 1

  Bealings, 1, 2

  Beans, cultivation of, 1, 2; bean-drill, 1

  Beccles, 1

  Bedford, 1

  Beet, (cattle-, or mangel-wurzle), 1, 2, 3, 4; cultivation, 1;

  beet-scoop and drill, 1

  Belladonna, 1

  Bentley, 1

  Biddell, A., 1, 2, 3

  Biddell, G. A., 1

  Biddell, H., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Thomas Clarkson & Playford Hall, 1, 2, 3;

  stud-book, 1

  Biddell, Jane, see Ransome, Jane Biddell, M., 1, 2

  Biddell, W., 1, 2

  Billycock, 1, 2

  Birmingham, 1

  Bishopsgate (London), 1

  Blaxhall, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Blencowe, Mrs, 1

  Bloom (shine on horse’s coat), 1, 2

  Bloomfield, R., (Suffolk poet), 1

  Blunt, Lady A., 1

  Boon (the Butley shepherd), 1

  Bostock and Womb well, 1

  Botwright, F., 1

  Box leaves, 1

  Boxer 755,

  Julian’s, 1

  Bramfield, 1

  Branson’s, Playford, 1, 2

  Brettenham, 1

  Brew, taking up the, 1

  Bristol, Marquis of, 1

  British Solomon Islands, 1

  Brown, B., 1

  Bryony, or ‘big-root’, 1, 2

  Buck, S., 1

  Bugg, C., 1, et passim

  Burdock, 1

  Bury St. Edmunds, 1, 2, 3

  Butley, 1, 2, 3

  Buxhall, 1

  Byron, 1

  Caernarvonshire, 1

  Calendar, Gregorian, 1; Julian, 1

  Cambridge, Folk Museum, 1; University, 1

  Cambridgeshire, 1, 2, 3

  Canada, 1

  Capel St Mary, 1

  Carrier, the village, 1

  Cary’s New Itinerary (1815), 1

  Catawade, 1

  Catlin, Thomas, 1

  Cavings-sieve, 1

  Celandine, 1

  Chaplin, A., 1, 2, 3; et passim

  Cheese, 1; Suffolk bang, 1

  Chevallier, Dr and Mrs (C-barley), 1

  Christianity, 1

  Churchman’s (tobacco), 1

  Clarke, K. M., 1

  Clarkson, Thomas, 1, 2, 3; (see also Biddell, H.); Mrs Clarkson, 1

  Claxton, A. O. D., 1

  Cobbold, A., 1

  Cobbold, W., 1, 2; 3; et passim

  Coddenham, 1

  Coke, Thomas (Holkham), 1, 2

  Colchester, 1

  Comb (or coomb), four bushels, 1, 2, 3

  Commissioners, H. M. Prison, 1

  Cooper, Kersey, 1

  Copdock, 1

  Corn Production Act (1917), 1

  Cornwall, 1

  Covent Garden, 1

  Cows, 1; old attitude to in Suffolk, 1

  Cranbrook, Lord, 1

  Creeting, 1, 2

  Crisp’s Horse of Ufford, 1, 2

  Crisp, Thomas, 1, 2, 3

  Cropping Schedule, 1

  Cullum, the Rev. Sir John, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Culpeper, Nicholas, 1, 2

  Cummins, 1

  Cupbearer 3rd 566, Garrett’s, 1

  Cuyp, Dutch artist, 1

  Cyvar, or co-aration, 1

  Darby, H. C., 1

  Davidson, Thomas, 1, 2, 3, 4

  Day-man, or ordinary farm-worker, 1

  Debenham, 1

  Denbigh, 1

  Dernell, John, 1

  Dialect, Suffolk, 1

  Dickens, Charles, 1

  Diss, 1

  Doncaster (corduroy), 1

  Draining or ditching, 1, 2

  Drawing oils, 1

  Drilling, 1;

  beet, 1; half-stetch, 1;

  folklore of, 1

  Dublin, clay-pipes, 1

  Duke 296, 1, 2, 3

  Dunnett, Walter, 1

  Earth, a ploughing, 1

  East Anglia, farming, 1, 2, 3; farmers, 1, 2;

  stagecoaches, 1; 2

  et passim

  East Anglian Daily Times, 1, 2

  Eclipse 2627, 1

  Economic Commission for Europe, 1

  Education Act, 1870, 1

  Egyptian horse-charms, 1

  Eight-furrow (two-yard) work, 1

  Elecampane, 1

  Elijahs, 1, 2

  Elizabeth, Queen, 1

  Ely, 1

  Emerson-Brantigan, tractor, 1

  Ernle, Lord, English Farming Past and Present, 1, 2

  Essex, 1, 2, 3, 4

  Eye, 1

  Fair Isle, 1

  Farmers (Scottish), 1, 2;

  wives of, 1; 2

  Farmers (Suffolk), 1; long tradition, 1;

  marriages among, 1;

  sayings, 1

  Farnham, 1

  Fever-, or feather-few, 1

  Field, Mary, 1

  Finberg, H. P. R., 1

  Finningham, 1

  First Nail, 1

  Flat work, 1, 2

  Flax, 1

  Flock (wool), 1, 2, 3

  Folklore, 1, 2; journal, 1, 2

  Fordson, tractor, 1

  Four-course system, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

  Fox, A. Wilson, Royal Commissioner, 1

  Fox, George, the Quaker, 1

  Framlingham, 1, 2, 3, 4

  Framsden, 1

  Frazer, Sir J. G., 1

  Freemasons, 1

  Frolic, harvest, 1

  Fussell, G. E., 1

  Garrard, G., 1, 2

  Garrett drill, 1

  Garrett, Newson, 1; Rd., 1

  Gentian or felwort, 1

  George, 1, 2

  Ghose, S. N., 1

  Gislingham, 1, 2

  Glamorgan, 1

  Glemham, Great, 1

  Glove-money (old harvest-custom), 1

  Gooding, A., 1

  Gordon, Hugh, 1

  Gordon, Seaton, 1

  Grafton, the Duke of, 1

  Groom, H., 1

  Groom, W., 1, 2

  Grosseteste, Robert, 1

  Grundisburgh, 1

  Gurdon, Lady C., 1

  Gurney’s, the Quaker bankers, 1

  Gwerin, see Davidson, T.

  Gypsies, 1, 2

  Hacheston, 1

  Haggard, Sir H. Rider, 1, 2

  Hancock, R., 1

  Ha’penny screw, 1

  Harness, horse, old, 1, 2; 3

  Harrow, 1; bush-h., 1, 2;

  Biddell’s, 1;

  comb-h., 1;

  harrowing, 1, 2, 3

  Hartley, Dorothy, 1

  Harvest, Lord of, 1, 2; contract, 1

  Harwood, H. F., 1

  Hawstead, see Cullum Hay, salting of, 1

  Helmingham, 1, 2

  Hemp, 1

  Henley (Suffolk) 1, 2, 3

  Henry VIII, 1

  Henry IV, 1

  Herbs for horses, 1, 2

  Hervey, Lord Francis, 1

  Hesiod, 1

  Highway Sessions, 1

  History, agricultural, study of, 1

  Hitcham, 1, 2

  Hobart (painter), 1

  Hobbs, May E., 1

  Hoeing, horse-, 1

  Hole, Christina, 1, 2

  Hollesley Bay, 1

  Hollingsworth (Suffolk historian), 1

  Hollis, F. H., 1, 2

  Horehound, 1

  Horse Breeding Act (1918), 1

  Horse, Percheron, 1

  Horse, Shire, 1, 2, 3

  Horse, Suffolk, 1; feeding and grooming, 1;

  in field, 1;

  stabling, 1, 2; 3;

  history, 1;

  tribes, 1;

  colour and build, 1;

  breaking, 1

  Horseman or ploughman, precedence at work, 1, 2, 3; field-work, 1;

  length of day, 1;

  sequence of jobs throughout year, 1;

  role at harvest, 1;

  dress, 1;
/>   wages, 1, 2

  Horton, D. C, 1

  Hoskins, Dr W. G., 1

  Hull, Museum, 1

  India, 1

  Ipswich, 1 et passim Ipswich Journal, 1, 2

  Izzard, George, 1

  Jay, Tom, 1

  Job, the prophet, 1

  Jobson, A., 1, 2

  Journey, a day’s ploughing, 1; journey-money, 1, 2

  Jumper, the Yorkshireman, 1

  Keer, Raymond, 1, 2, 3

  Lancashire, 1

  Lancaster, Jack, 1

  Lancaster, John, 1

  Land, potential of, 1; l.-horse as opposed to furrow-horse, 1

  Laxfield, 1

  Leeds, University, 1

  Leicester, University, 1

  Leicestershire, 1

  Libya, 1

  Lincoln, 1

  Lincolnshire, 1, 2

  Listener, The, 1

  London, market; 1, 2, 3; University, 1