Labour-saver covers more ground

Under the heading `Enterprising local farmer’, the Observer’s Doune area correspondent said the war had underlined the importance to the nation of being self-sufficient in food production.

Scarcity of labour and increases in the prices of products used in agriculture had posed problems for farmers as they battled to meet the shortfall caused by diminishing food supplies.

The correspondent believed farmers were taking up the challenge and highlighted – as a“commendable example”– a Mr Bonthrone, who farmed at Craighead, Blair Drummond.

He was the first to introduce to the area a “motor tractor plough”. It had been utilised “on redland and carse land”and had proved eminently successful in each case.

The correspondent had watched the tractor operating and enjoyed the “unusual experience”of riding on it as it several times circled the field.

“It was turning over three`furs’at once and although going at a good pace , there was no hitch in its progress and no irregularity in the fresh, turned-up furrows,”added the Observer’s representative.

“Mr Bothrone has ploughed as much as six acres in a day with the machine , an amount of work which is at least equal to six pairs of horses in the same time. The gain, therefore, in labour saving is obvious.”

Mr Bonthrone operated the tractor himself and showed great resource and skill in the ease with which he steered the machine into and out of the furrows, said the correspondent, adding:“Things which are new have always a certain amount of prejudice and even stupidity to overcome before they find general acceptance but judging by the results obtained at Craighead Farm and elsewhere, the tractor plough has come to stay.”