Page 58 - br-jan-23

January 2023 January 2023

What a wonderful autumn and early winter we have had, leaves still remained
green and grass continued to grow. Weather wise the first frost here came on the
6 of December and this certainly was not at all severe. Wild violets growing in the
th
cracks in the concrete of our path were flowering as they were in January 2022.
The late flush of grass has been a great benefit to the livestock farmers, who were
able to extend their grazing period, which compensated for the poor hay and
silage yields because of the hotter, drier summer.
This autumnal weather change may have been beneficial to livestock farmers but
it was far too late to compensate the cereal farmers of this country, who had a
poorer harvest because of poor growing conditions for their crops. Root crops
such as sugar beet, potatoes and vegetables generally were possibly irrigated,
where water was available and would not have received such poorer annual
yields.
Late sixties and early seventies we were
talking in yields of bushels as all the grain
was sold in four bushel, hessian sacks.
Wheat sacks weighed at two and a
quarter hundredweight, barley two
hundredweight and oats one and a half
hundredweight. All these sacks were
man handled from the grain drier or
corn, grain bins to the lorries that
transported the grain from the farm to
the mill or to the feed compounders. I
spent many hours helping load lorries,
carrying four bushel sacks from one
place to another and on a few
occasions carrying two sacks together
for bets.
Today of course all this is illegal and
carry hundredweights is now more than
that allowed. Changes are many and to
the benefit of mankind generally. For
instance the drainage of bog land was considered very beneficial in the past; the
Fens when drained produced thousands of acres of very fertile farm land and was
considered a wonderful achievement at the time.
Today the draining large areas of bogland would be considered to be very much
against the modern trends of rewilding and conservation generally. Looking back
I considered using peat based products for gardening projects the correct thing
but now I am having second thoughts. To get the peat, bogland has to be
exploited to a terrible extent. These bogs have taken thousands of years to get to
their present state the sphagnum mosses created a surface supporting more than
eight times their own weight in water. Tight clusters of moss formed a patchwork

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