Friday 2010-03-19 Screenshots and Discussion Thread

[Sutts]

I'm not after functioning farms guys and I don't dispute the fact there were plenty of tractors working the fields in those days.

All I'm saying is that:

1. Baled hay and straw (round or square) would largely not have been seen
2. Lines of straw in fields would only come later with the introduction of mobile combined harvesters
3. The evenly spaced tractor tramlines that are apparent in the Blenheim shot would definitely not have been seen - these are for the efficient application of fertiliser and sprays on a large scale with 20-30 meter booms. This technology has only been around since the 80s really.

There were machines that could help with the harvest but they were very different from today.

Binders would cut the wheat/barley/oats and tie it up into neat bundles which were dropped on the ground. Workers would then stand a few of these bundles together to form stooks which would aid further drying and keep some of the rain out. These stooks would have been a major feature in fields around harvest time (see picture in previous post).

A static threshing machine (powered by steam or tractor) would then be pulled to the field and the stooked crop would be untied and thrown into the top of the machine. The grain would be threshed out and poured out into sacks while the threshed straw would be dropped out and piled up loosely into pitched stacks (see picture in previous post). These loose stacks would also have been a common sight.

It is possible an odd early baler may have come over from the States but this would have been very rare indeed.


I know some of you could care less about such details but I think it makes a big difference, especially for those interested in producing period correct footage. The enlarged, neatly tended, tramlined fields in the Memphis Belle movie were a dead giveaway. Using plain fields instead of tramlined ones has got to be easier anyway hasn't it?

This really isn't a criticism, it just may not be obvious to people who haven't worked in agriculture.