Country Life
BY IAN NIALL HARVEST on the Welsh hills is only half- mechanised, for the nature of the country prevents complete labour-saving. When the wind is playful, the corn gets flattened in that odd fashion that makes one think that some giant has been having a siesta in the field, and then the harvesting goes back to Biblical methods. In the main, however, tractors manage harvest on the hills nowadays and horse-drawn binders are a rarity. I have not spotted one so far, although cutting is only just getting into its swing. Mechanised harvest- ing really means more than it did a few years back. It means the combine, and the combine is a juggernaut. It needs flat fields and acres to satisfy its appetite. It clatters and flails and leaves the stubble rather longer than might please some of our old Welsh farmers who, when they sow corn, want as much straw and grain as possible and the minimum stubble to be ploughed in. Perhaps one day the inventors may turn their thoughts to small fields and hilly country, and a new sort of pocket-sized combine will cut and thresh the corn on the little round hills, and the harvester —the man who has toiled in the field for generations—will become almost as rare as a horse or even a corncrake.
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