No 210. Slicing Turnips.

No 210. Slicing Turnips.

Slicing turnips for the cattle was such a part of long gone farming that it deserves a mention. Turnips were sliced particularly for rising two-year old feeding cattle as they changed their calf teeth for permanent teeth at around 20 months. For them to howk whole turnips was not easy until their new lower jaw front teeth had grown in so the farmer and the crofter sliced their turnips for them at that time.


The ubiquitous turnip cutter was universal, not particularly as a crofter’s tool, big farms had them too in abundance. The difference was the larger farms as progress dictated would eventually buy a large machine which could be power driven, either by water power or off the horse mill course. Eventually an engine was put on to some of them, and my last turnip cutter at Isauld was driven by an electric motor. Magic. These were beyond the price range of crofters unless it was a “giveaway”.

Where there was a lot of cattle to feed in winter slicing neeps was a big and never ending job. Many neep sheds had a compliment of wire baskets which were placed under the cutter, filled and stacked ready for the byre. At Isauld we had a collection of wicker fish baskets gleaned from the sea shore below Isauld and from Sandside Beach, easier on the hands to handle than wire baskets and quite capacious. Cattle would get a basket between two for smaller cattle and a basket each to the big feeders. Wire baskets came in different sizes to suit different byres or needs, the fish baskets were all of the same size, a quarter cran.

Many old hand cutters went the way of the Crofter, though not always, they were still handy to keep about the neep shed to cut a few neeps. Long handled with a heavy balance weight at the other end to give extra punch to the downward stroke which sliced the turnips for the cattle. The blades would be kept very sharp but a file was needed to get down beteen the blades, a round scythe sharpening stone did not fit too well but could do a turn if no file was available.
It was fascinating to watch a skilled man cutting his days’ supply of neeps. It looked easy until as boys we tried it ourselves!!
Neeps - turnips - came in different sizes. Small ones could be cut with one good steady downward stroke but large neeps often needed two strokes. First stroke to drive the neep half way through the slicer blades, the next to finish it off. The man who could slice a large turnip in one stroke was rare, and sometimes he did it just to show off!! Still, it was a challenge.
The measured stroke of a skilled man was magic, just enough to slice the neep and not to waste energy on extra effort or jar your wrist. Even the sound of a neep going through the blades had a sibilant sweetness, I can hear it still in memory.

Huge heaps would be cut for the weekend if time allowed, or the horseman came into the turnip shed to help the cattleman out.

On larger farms the work was done most days, and perhaps well over an hour a day was spent slicing neeps. It was just part of the cattleman’s darg. Where there were many cattle on a large farm a horseman went at times into the neep shed to cut the neeps for the cattleman. A good early morning inside job when it was still too dark to yoke the horses, or a welcome task on a weet morning. A heap of neeps were sliced as well by any spare horseman to make the cattleman’s work for the weekend just a tad easier.


At one neep at a time it was tedious, but a skilled man with his hooked neep docker in one hand easily picking and swinging the neep into the slicer and the other hand keeping up a relentless rythm..
Sometimes the door to the byre was left open all night to thaw out some of the frozen neeps in the shed when frost held sway outdoors in the turnip field, some of the heat of the cattle coming through and thawing the neeps on top of the heap.

The feeding cattle in former times were older and came on more slowly than now when we have more intensive feeding and get the cattle off to market at an earlier age. Apart from that, turnips are not grown much today for cattle, though some farmers still do, particularly in Aberdeenshire. Grass silage is now the universal feed for winter. To the charge that turnips were mostly water, the old Aberdonian farmer would say “ Aye, aye, gae guid watter, mon!” And it was truly so.