MOST OF THE LAND around Bourne is devoted to arable farming, the main crops being wheat, potatoes, sugar beet and oilseed, all traditional crops although the techniques used to grow and harvest them have changed dramatically during my lifetime. Every operation is now highly mechanised and has replaced the enormous amount of manual labour needed in years gone by.

The quaint haystack, once a feature of the English countryside, has disappeared and now, after combining, the straw is collected and bound into bales both round and rectangular, large and small, which are ultimately stored in huge stacks either in or around a Dutch barn ready for use either as bedding or for cattle feed during the winter months.

There are many examples of the new mechanisation and now, having retired, many walks through the countryside have sparked an interest in the weird and wonderful toys that farmers seem to employ to assist with their work on the land, recording images of machinery going about their tasks, usually noisily but always efficiently and often quite gracefully.

The very familiar combine harvester, for instance, creates a dramatic impression as it cuts a swathe through a field of standing wheat leaving a trail of dust in its wake, sometimes simultaneously transferring its load of grain to a huge tractor and trailer lumbering alongside, the tractor having become the modern day workhorse on the farm by replacing the heavy horses of past times and they become larger and more powerful with the years.

Here are a few of the images captured locally as a record of the farming year and particularly harvest time when farmers reap the results of their labours to help sustain our ever increasing demand on the land’s resources.