Power on the Land

The rise of the machines in the green and pleasant land, as the horse-drawn plough gives way to the tractor and the combine harvester.

Replacing idyllic pastoral scenes of the horse-drawn plough with brutish machines and discussion of “output per farm labour unit” is not an easy sell. This short attempts to have its cake and eat it, mixing scenes of older methods with the new. Mostly focussed on arable farming, it also covers taking dairy farming beyond the pail. But the insistence that an increase in machines does not mean a reduction in farm labour, is belied by the pictures and the benefit of hindsight.