On the land

Farmers in the early Twenties kept their cows in shippons, twenty to twenty-five at a time, all chained up in the winter and fed with mangles, a type of turnip which was chopped like chipped potatoes and mixed up with draught, which came from the brewery. They were fed whilst being milked by hand. The milk was then put into a cooler. The shippons were very warm even in the winter and there were always a lot of cats around keeping warm. They helped to kill all the rats. The only light available was from oil lamps or candles. There were cows that kicked you and they had to have their back legs strapped whilst they were being milked.

In the middle of the farmyard there was a midden for when the shippons or stables were cleaned out. The manure was then used for feeding crops. Hens and ducks roamed around the farm laying eggs, anywhere they could be warm, especially in the hay sheds where they could spend all day pecking away at the insects. The barns were full of hay and this would have to be chopped up with a hand machine to feed the horses. It was mixed with corn. In those days the horses had to do all the ploughing, two furrows at a time. It was a sight to see all the birds following the ploughman, eating all the worms that had been turned up.

At the side of the barns the corn stood waiting to be threshed. This had been cut by a machine called a "South Binder", which also tied the corn up in sheaves as it was thrown out. When they got to the last cut all the rabbits would run out seeking refuge. The threshing was done at the farm and you would see the steam traction engine working the thresher which separated the corn from the chaff. The straw was put through another machine which baled it into square blocks which were afterwards used for animal bedding.