Page 34 - The Farming Years proof

InTRoDUCTIon To BARLEY
So, the rst job was to plough the top 13 acre eld. Plough settings had changed since my teenage ploughing experience so I asked Roy Westaway, whose family had a farm as well as a very successful garage and farm machinery business at naseby, to get me up-to- date. He kindly came over to Loddington and gave me the bene t of his knowledge.
Ploughing now is all with reversible ploughs. The tractor ploughs to the headland then lifts the plough, turns it to the plough shares that were at the top, then ploughs down the same furrow giving continuity without a break. In 1978 all ploughs went one way only so you had to mark the eld out with the plough tipped to use one furrow. First you marked the headlands at 24 ft from the hedge and then made lines across the eld marked with one furrow. Each side of the gap line then had to be ploughed until you met in the middle. The ploughing needed to be straight to ensure the gap did meet precisely and then you ploughed the headlands by going round the eld edge. Fortunately, not applicable any more but it was a question of pride to get it straight and to meet perfectly. The measurements were made by pacing and sticking a marker in the hedge. For me, there was no science involved, just consistent pacing both ends.
It took me from the 5th March to 9th March to plough the eld with the time I had to spare and the tractor had lights. It was then a question of preparing the seed bed with several passes of the disc harrow. I think I got Jim involved at this point and I certainly did for the drilling with Georgie variety barley at 11⁄4 cwt to the acre at 2" depth, the fertilizer at 96 kilos to the acre and I completed the drilling on the 6th April. As you can see, the weekends were dedicated to farming.
I then made a big mistake and decided to under-sow the barley with grass seed as it would be autumn grazing for store lambs. It was common practice at the time and I had no experience of har-
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