The June Returns 1961
First year farming in my own right 1961
Out to daytime pastures, to distant fields to graze,
Back again for milking on long fine summer days,
Just dug out an old diary from just fifty years ago, and on looking at the page where I recorded the June Returns 1961, (a statutory form sent out by the Ministry every June) it started with Crops.
Then onto livestock
Then to the grass land and any other spurious crops that might be grown around the country
Total area was 96 acres, which was a popular acreage on the estate as four or even five farms were 96 acres or very close to it, with three others into the 120 to 140 acre bracket.
Looking back I had almost six acres of wheat and five acres of oats, and looking further down the year it was bindered and stooked in the fields. Later still in the diary, into the winter we had the contractor came with his threshing set and stationary baler, combines were only just getting about, it was a contractor that had the only one in our area.
Only two year before in 1959 when I was at farm college, we were taught how to pull and top sugar beet by hand, (a job we had been doing for three years at home) the students and the college farm workmen had cleared the beet off the headlands then a sugar beet harvester was brought in, the first one I had seen and only one in our part of the world, on trial, and as a demonstrator.
Back to the ‘returns’, two acres of marrow stem kale was drilled and singled by hand hoe, and some new sown grass seeds, and short term leys, finishing up with the balance of acreage as permanent pasture.
On to the labour section, one twenty year old man who took home his first wage packet from me £7-10s-6d , or if you bring it up to new money values, £7-52 and a half p. for a whole weeks work.
The cattle amounted to thirty three cows, four in calf heifers, one Friesian bull, eight yearlings, and thirteen heifer calves. That was the limit of stalls we had at that time as the cows would be tied by the neck with a chain to each stall.
It was around this time that a new concept of housing cows other than stalls and deep bedding had just been invented, the cow cubicle. The dimensions were critical and great publicity was give to the idea in the farming press, I built a small row of cubicle stalls free standing with its own roof as a lean-to along side the cow shed. They proved very successful and some ten years later purchased and put up a sixty four stall cubicle house that we erected our selves; every other stall extended up to support the roof.
Pigs, we had seven store pigs for fattening, no sheep, and two hundred laying hens kept in a deep litter poultry pen, and eleven geese that ran out to the stream that runs close by in the fields behind the farm.
Another section in the front of the diary was the amount of milk sold that year
This showed we were mainly spring calving, peaking in April when the cows went out to grass. The bottom line added up and divided by 33 cows make an average of 830 gallons per cow, the aim in them days of recorded herds were a thousand gallons per cow.
This was a first year, perhaps a greater number of first calf heifers, and a certain amount was used to suckle the thirteen calves reared to at least two months of age. I shall have to look back at the national milk records to see when I started recording, as that shows what each cow produces, not how much is sold.
The Cow Chain
At one time cows were all tied up, in stalls to milk and feed,
Each one knew its own place, not much room indeed,
When young they didn’t like it, but soon learned where to go,
Twice every day it was for them, walking too and fro.
Out to daytime pastures, to distant fields to graze,
Back again for milking on long fine summer days,
Walk into their own shed, and finding their own stall,
Standing there to be chained, got to chain them all.
Each stall holds a pair of cows, left and right they learn,
Once they know their own side, one word n’ they discern,
“Come over” spoken to them , they know your coming through,
The pair will part, n’ chain them up, n’ stand their cud to chew.
A scoop of corn while milking, then wait till milked the lot,
Loosed off the chains they wander, out to pasture we allot,
Clean the sheds and clean the stalls, till milking comes again,
For to tie them up you always need, good strong shiny chain.
Countryman