When I were a lad my Aunt Dotty and Uncle Jim won the pools. They won enough for Uncle Jim to quit work at the glue-works and for them to realise a shared dream. A dream they had shared in fact since they were kids. They bought a farm and started to adapt it to fit in with their dream. The farm could not be just any old farm but had to be a story book farm. They called the farm Poppy Farm and set about changing it to suit their dream. Within a few years they had succeeded and were no longer drawing on their winnings to live. There was the farmhouse with plentiful flowers in the front, herbs at the back and a large market garden area to one side. The farmhouse did not have all the features we would consider essential. The toilet was in an outhouse and there was no bathroom but a metal bath hung on a wall in the washroom. They had a barn, a long garage that sheltered a tractor, Jim's old Ford car and a couple of cars and a wain (the latter was a cart especially made for carrying hay), a couple of sheds, two large greenhouses and a workshop. Almost hidden at the bottom of the back garden was an icehouse which was as effective as a freezer and cost very little to run. Water was hand pumped up into a tank from a well that also had another hand pump to get water outside.

They grew flowers, herbs, vegetables and a variety of fruit. They had a small orchard and four fields. In the fields they grew a grain crop, I cannot remember which, vegetables, and kept a few cows and a few sheep in the others. Two sheep dogs helped look after the live stock which included nosey geese, noisy ducks, hens and a cock called Charlie, rabbits, a goat that kept the grass down in the orchard and some pigs with a smelly pig sty. We liked the pigs as they were clever and we would play with them in the orchard where they were allowed to roam during the day. There was also a dosey bull called Alf who never chased anyone and seemed quite content to have us kids clamber all over him. There was a fat cat called Rats who was a fantastic ratter and a smaller stuck up cat who spent most of her time on the farmhouse roof. Another dog, goodness knows what breed, guarded the yard and kept foxes and other predators at bay. There was a donkey called Queenie and two shire horses. The farm had two ponds, a central duck pond and another down the back of one of the fields - a great place to find tadpoles and newts at the right times of year. There were a variety of trees and some of the older kids built a tree house in the oak.

Dotty and Jim had no children of their own which was really a shame for if anyone was cut out to be parents it was them. Fortunately both came from large families so they always had folk around. They had no hired hands as such but a couple of teen girls that lived nearby helped with the horses and Jim paid local people to help him when they could. We were often there at harvest time as most of the family pitched in to help at this busy time of the year.

When I was about nine we moved into town and I never went there again as, I think I was fourteen or so, I cycled there one day to find the place had been sold and a housing estate was being build where the farmyard used to be. When I got home I asked my parents about it and they told me that Jim had died, suddenly, while working in the fields and Aunt Dotty just sold up and moved away saying that she did not want to be there without Jim. She went and ran a seaside boarding house until she too died.

That type of farm is rare. Most farms now are larger and a lot less diverse. Farmers no longer get in their grain crops but pay to have harvesters come in with especial machinery and vehicles to do the job for them. Small fields and orchards are no longer considered economical and factory farming has all but removed chickens etc. from around farms. Now, however there is a sign that the tide is turning again. Greater awareness of environmental issues, fears of food shortages due to ecological issues, for example the diminishing bee population, and a desire for better flavored food are coming together and more free range and mixed farming is slowly appearing.

So, after that introduction, what will we put on this page? Literally anything that takes my fancy to do with the subject is the answer.

The Lazy Rotation System

Well that is what it was called by the farmer who was telling me all about it. Before the industrial age, the country relied on farming to keep it going. The wealthy in the country were getting wealthier as food from their estates was not only being sold in Britain but also being exported. There was good reason that farming crops was doing well and that was a crop rotation system whereby one year a cerial crop was grown in a field, the next it was allowed to lie fallow and cattle graze there and then the third root vegetables would be planted - mainly beets. This rotation was strictly kept to as it minimised the need to use any form of fertilisation. This was all well and good while there was pleanty of land around that provided for the other needs of the crops and nature in general.

Along came the industrial age and more and more land was taken for the use of industry, either for manufacture, mining or housing. This was not as sudden as recent history would have us believe as population pressures had already caused the formation of some small towns around certain industries and so factory techniques were pretty advanced by the time that iron engines and steam started the steam age. Farmers were already noticing changes due to less countryside and higher human population. By the time the steam age was well established so were many farming 'answers' to the problems. A higher density of flowers were grown, especially along the sides of lanes and pathways. Virtually all drainage ditches and streams had trees growing alongside them on one side or the other. This provided wind breaks that gave some shelter to the crops and animals. Now flowers and friendly grasses were also grown there. Muck spreading became common. In suitable areas more cattle were kept in woodland and more sheep kept on moorland (and more of each type of land were, unfortunately, converted to farmland). All this happened because it worked. Not because some bright spark said to do it. It was a natural evolution.

By Victorian times it was seen to be not enough. Now inventors then didn't think, "As this is going wrong we must stop it!" but more of "Ah! This is going wrong so what can we do about it." Rather than shut down things they looked for methods to work around them but putting things right. One of the things that came out of this was the more modern Lazy Rotation System of Crop Rotation and Farming, to give it the full title. Basically it recommended farmers keep two main 'herd' types of animal out of sheep or goats, cows, pigs, and horses. That each farm have at least five fields and another grazing area, like a meadow. Any year there would be two cerial and one root crop each growing in a field, one field would be fallow and another used for grazing with a cycle going, cereal, graze, cerial, root, fallow, and so on. On top of this each farm should have a market garden, herb, soft fruit and flower area with the soft fruits providing boundries for the other areas that should be changed around over a period of around five years. All this provides welcome cover for friendy wildlife, pollen for bees, winter feed for woodland creatures and winter birds. The system has proven to be very successful in areas surrounded by industry and in the South West of England. In the South East of the country there are a far greater proportion of hops and fruit grown and so different methods are used there and in the fenlands of the West there was a very different ecology as the land was wetlands and fenlands in the main.

The farmer, also a part time lecturer on agriculture, had a farm in Devon and used the system himself. They kept sheep and a dairy herd. They had around ten fields and two areas of woodland. They started to keep horses and hired one field a year to other farmers to graze cattle on. Twenty years after he told me this, the farm is half the size and he breeds horses. European Common Market regulations have made this the most profitable when coupled with the way that the large supermarket chains are dealing with the farming industry.

Much Spreading - disributing an even amount of silage over an area of land, silage being a mixture of rotting vegetation and animal manure.

Traditional Farming Tools

Bill Hook - a bit like a machete with a hooked shape at the pointy end and mounded on a small or long handle. Used to thin trees and bushes and to get rushes and willow, etc. Due to its shape it can precisely and cleanly remove young branches by cutting very close to the trunk or older branch.

Pitch Fork - a two pronged fork with the prongs slightly curved used to handle sheaths, bales and heaped loose hay.

Sickle - a short curved blade on a short handle used to harvest crops. Traditionally a symbol of druids who, it is said, used it to harvest mistletoe.

Scythe - a large wide long blade with a handle at one end and at rightangles to the blade, the handle shaped and the blade angled to facilitate the cutting of crops and grasses just above the ground. Used in harvesting and ground clearing. Traditionally a symbol of Father Time and of Death. Death is supposed to use it to cut the soul free from the body.

Farming Vehicles

Tractor - The tractor, with smaller wheels at the front for steering and very large wheels at the back for traction in the muddiest of fields and a powerful motor, has taken over from the horse as the farm's hard worker. It is used to pull or push a variety of attachments like the plow, seeder, grasscutter, etc. On the front a bulldozer blade, fork lifter, front roller, large earth or gravel scoop (like on the front of a JCB) can be fitted and most now can also have a trench digger, hammer spike (for smashing rocks, concrete, etc.) or even mini crane fitted. All this as well as being able to tow and power carts, muck spreaders, trailers, other vehicles, large rollers, etc. Some will have a generator built in to supply elecrical power and most have lights set up high so that work can be done at night.

1882 Steam powered tractor.	Popular shape and design for tractors through my lifetime.	Tractor being used to power and control a water pump.

Wain - This is a wagon designed to carry hay and similar crops. It is relatively wide with sides that slope outwards so they are further apart at the top. Once common and pulled by horses or oxen but now, as farming methods have changed, less common and pulled by a tractor. Wain Wagon - this uncommon vehicle was only really in relatively popular use in the UK from around 1910 through to the early fifties. It was simply an open backed lorry with the back part designed similar to the horse (or tractor) drawn wain. Later models were made so they could not travel fast so that less of the crop was blown off as it travelled.

Parts of a Farm

Meadow - An area of grassland either used for keeping cattle, or often being boggy and near a river. If the former every three years or so cattle would not be kept there and the grass allowed to grow along with many wildflowers. Apart from attracting both more pollinators who would them use other flowers in the farm, it also provided cover for other wildlife and was part of a farms rotation system.

Orchard = basically a fruit tree plantation, especially when containing apple or pear trees. Beehives were also kept in orchards so that bees would pollinate the trees as they gathered pollen from the blossem. Every now and then pigs would be allowed into an orchard as they were considered good for them and often goats would be brought in to shorten the grass. Traditionally in the south of England roses and hawthorn were grown around orchards to keep thieves at bay.