No 231 Tattie Riddling Newtonmore

 

No 231 TATTIE RIDDLES

 

No 231 THE TATTIE PIT.

No 231.  The Tattie Pit.

Most crofters and many farmers stored their tatties outdoors in tattie pits. Shed space in many steadings was often scarce and farms, big or small, often stored their tatties in a clamp, changing site every year. Farm workers would have no shed space at all so clamping their tatties was the norm. Many preferred to have a clamp anyway as it kept the tatties better than shed storage.

A bit of ground was selected, usually on a slight rise or slope and therefore dry. In late autumn, 22^nd  October  1896, the day after lifting his tatties, Tom Delday, a Deerness man then working for my grandfather at  the Bu  of Rousam in Stronsay, went to the hill for turf to cover his tatty pit. That turf would be old and tough, easily flayed off the hill.  It might have been the turf flayed off the peat bank earlier in the year and set aside for later collection, though not all such turrings were suitable for the tattie clamp. There was a special turring breast spade that allowed a man to skim off a thin layer of turf, different from the turrings of a peat bank which were normally very much thicker.

 Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster, about 1810, took skilled men from Westmorland in England to Thurso East to skim the turf off new land for taking into cultivation on the eventual farm thereof. That turf was but a few inches thick, fibrous grass and roots and maybe some heather. It was wind and sun dried, gathered into heaps, set on fire and the ashes spead as  fertiliser on the new ground.

In places it was a bad practice as it denuded some land to improve bits elsewhere.

It was done about 1860 on my first farm of Lower Dounreay, under William Reid Tait, then factor for the Murkle Estate owned by Admiral Sir John Gordon Sinclair, Bart, (who died in 1863)

The old leases expired in 1859 and the whole Estate was remodelled, new farms laid out, crofters and cottars cleared .

The Rousam  peat hill produced a great variety of differing turfs, some heather covered, some tough old grass, and Delday would know full well what was best suited to cover his tatty clamp or pit.

Such turf would have been great insulation for the winter, placed on top of the pit after the tatties were heaped in a conical row.  Straw was placed over the tatties in a fairly thick layer, then the earth and turf which had been cleared to make the base of the pit was laid carefully on top, keeping the straw from blowing away overnight.  A layer of turf ASAP to finish it all. A small thick vent of upright straw was often set into the top of the clamp, allowing the tatties to breath surplus moisture into the outer air.

Such clamps were remarkably frost free, even in a bad winter, the insulation as good as it gets. Shed stored tatties could get frosted if care was not taken in covering with straw and any old sacks past their prime, or re-covering when the heap was opened to take some tatties out for the kitchen.

Care was taken to see that the surface run of the heather or grass was slanted downwards to run off as much rain as possible. The same turf was used by many a crofter to roof his cottage. Culloden Battlefield has an old house roofed in the same manner, and we can still find a house or a building so roofed, a relic and reminder of the past but often still functional.

A quck run through William Tait’s Diaries gave a resume of tattie lifting.

October 17^th, 1907, lifting potatoes a.m. .  Champions, a variety much grown, went into two  pits, five barrels in each. Fine day, no drout, a good day for tattie lifting. Next day putting earth on tattie pits.

Following  Spring on 3^rd April, a Saturday, they  took in a pit of tatties a.m.  Over the years it seems late March early April was a fairly usual time for taking in a pit of tatties.

Then to sorting them.  One good reason for the time was to get the smaller seed tatties sorted as well as the bigger eating ones.

I came across a crofter doing just that recently and took a few photos, with his permission of course. !!!  Two round hand-held riddles, a helper to fill them, a sunny day to enjoy. First the small riddle which let earth and small bits fall through. Then tip that riddle into the larger one to keep the big tatties within it and let the smaller seed tatties fall through into some recepticle. Backbreaking and tedious work on a long day, but it got the job done!!

No 230 Sowing neeps.

 

 

 

 

No 230 Sowingt neeps.

No 230  Sowing neeps

Neep sowing, a time of looking to the sky and wondering what the day would bring. Dry weather in May and early June was desirable, nay, essential!! The land was worked to desperation, harrowed, rolled, grubbed, then all over again, sometimes re-ploughed, on occasion even crossways. The work was endless to get the desired tilth.

On larger farms it was an all hands task. Weeds were cleared where time allowed, chain harrows crossing and re-crossing again and again at right angles to the last run to gather heaps of knot grass or couch which was then loaded onto carts and dumped in some suitable out of the way spot.

 Another method was to heap them up with graips  - garden forks to the city man - and apply a match on a dry and windy day. A good breeze would greatly help to fan the fire which could smoulder on for days in calm weather. Weeds of course were universal, and a letter from Stronsay emigrant Oliver Drever, written from Brandon, Canada, in 1909, says:- .

 “ In the first place the land is poorly ploughed in a great many cases. On this farm the land is in a measure lost for want of being properly ploughed & I saw this Spring any man that took time to harrow properly you could see it in the crop going by on the road. Another thing the land here is getting entirely overrun with weeds & wild oats is the worst. They are just like Murtle oats at  home but have a very thick shell (skin or husk). They grow so fast & as soon as they are shot off ( come into ear and ripen) they fall off & seed the ground worse nor ever. The only way to make anything of them is in the summer fallow get them to grow & then plough them down. We ploughed some here three times this year It's worse nor Sinnie Grass a lot for it chockes everything else”.

( Sinnie grass, an Orkney word for couch grass.-  Sinny is Old Norse for rush plant ). 

Then the field, worried to death and smooth as only a fussy farmer could get it, or worse still his even more fussy grieve, was drilled and sown. Neighbours looked critically to judge the straighness of the ridges. Really quite beautiful when done to perfection, corrugating the countryside.

The old horse drawn two-row neep sower was got out of the shed and brushed down. Musty and mouldy seeds were emptied out of the canisters. After sowing any spare seed was usually stored above the mantleplace to keep dry to next year. Seeds from William Shearer in Kirkwall, established 1857, were selected, quantities carefully worked out to the nearest half pound. Varieties were carefully chosen. What was it again that your neighbour had last year that were so good, winning the Seed and Root Show hands down at Canisbay, or where-ever?

What of the crofter without all the horses and men of the large farms. On Mary-Ann Calder’s 11 acre croft in Dunnet they had 1 ¾ acres of neeps with ¼ acre of tatties. At Isauld we used to ridge and sow ten acres a day when the going was good, tractor power rather than horses and long 25 chain fields. Before the tractor with two pairs of horses we would ridge about two acres a day. Sowing had to be done before coming home up to the last drill and never left overnight, even if the man worked late on into the evening. Drilling usually stopped early enough to allow the sower to catch up.The ridges were never allowed to lie overnight and dry out, soil moisture was at a premium.

From Canisbay I got a surprise when Jimmy Bremner produced at lunch time last Friday from the boot of his car outside Ebenezers at Mackay’s Hotel in Wick a relic of the past, a crofters one row neep sower, or the canister and gear sprocket wheel anyway. The photo is self explanatory.

Back home I looked up my George Murray of Banff Catalogue, 1878, and found his contribution to neep sowing, crofter style!! Small scale was an understatement. Murray had a “New Self Acting Hand Seed Drill”, the very ultimate as far as I was concerned.   His caption reads:-

“This celebrated little Machine is very useful for sowing all sorts of Garden Seeds.But more especially is it useful for mending blanks or patches among Turnips.When the Farmer is passing through the fields he can carry this little Machine along with him as it is not much heavier than a walking stick , and run in a blank whenever he comes upon it. The Rim of the travelling wheel is made conical  (ensuing steady travelling, so necessaary in it’s use. ) and presses the soil ready for the Coulter. a result not to be obtained bywheels with flat or round rims, which must of necessity jolt up and down  in passing over lumps, thereby wasting half the seed.   Price 10s 6d “

So the crofter had available a small neep sower that needed neither horse nor cow nor wife to drag it along the furrows!!! .