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!!! .