It almost goes without saying that most of the tractors in Northern Ireland are of the red variety - Massey Fergusons. That's 'cos Mr Harry Ferguson was a Belfast man. Engineer, inventor, aviator, Formula 1 designer - he did it all and his name will forever by synonymous with tractors in this part of the world. You can read more about him here, including his famous 'handshake agreement' with a certain Mr Henry Ford - an agreement which Ford's grandson ended and which resulted in a court case, settled in favour of Harry F but at great cost to his health.
Anyway, these two big boys were being used to gather spuds a while ago, in a field just down the road from us. I got in close with an Olympus OM4ti and 85mm Zuiko lens:
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| Massey Fergusons on HP5+; Ilford MG Classic paper. |
This next shot shows the potato-gathering contraption, to give it its proper title ;)
I spent a good while studying how it worked that day - it was pretty interesting! The tractor was going up and down the field very slowly - I mean, at a snail's pace. Inside the thing were two people (a man and a woman) who I realised later were doing an essential, if dirty, job. The device itself was gouging up copious amounts of good Ulster earth, most of which was deposited back in the ground not long after. The nuggets (spuds) were being shook free of the earth in some way (that happened inside the thing, so I wasn't party to the details). The potatoes were then transported to the hopper via a conveyor belt, and every so often they would be moved to the large trailer you might remember in this shot. The man and the woman were, I eventually figured out, picking out anything which wasn't a potato and ensuring it didn't end up in the wrong place. When they stopped for a break it seemed very important to them to look carefully through the various things they had picked out. To me it looked like a lot of junk - old tin cans and the like - but perhaps they had, at some time in the past, found something of value. You never know what the ground might give up, I guess - there have been instances when gold and other precious metal artefacts have been uncovered around these parts. I don't think they found anything much the day I was there - or if they did, they were keeping quiet about it. Who knows?
Both excellent photographs. I'm partial to the first one. Thanks also for the explanation of what they are doing.
ReplyDeleteI hope you've recovered from your procedure.
Thank you!
DeleteRecovery going well, thanks. Tired any time I try to go out but then I'm still taking a fairly heavy dose of antibiotics.
Here in the US, the popular tractors were John Deere and International. Which was too bad for my dad, who worked for Oliver. I do see M-F tractors at old tractor shows from time to time.
ReplyDeleteWe have a lot of John Deere here as well these days. International not so much. The odd time we see a Lamborghini - from the same guy that went on to make the supercars.
DeleteMost tractors nowadays are 10 times the size of ones around when I was a lad (and probably 10 times the price). The trouble is they are way too large for our country roads. I dread meeting one - usually they end up driving halfway up the ditch at a seemingly impossible angle to let you past.