[Odin]

Busy reading this book and really enjoying it . It was reviewed on Radio 4 and I liked what I was hearing and would recommend this to anyone that likes a bit of agricultural history or an interest in the arable side of life.


Basically, the writer, John Stewart Collis, was born in 1900, had a good education and was an academic. He served as an officer in the first world war but when the second world war came around, he knew that he would get a desk job and did not want it. So he got posted into the Land Army and worked on farms around the south of England and eventually forestry. The book is almost a diary but not quite, more reflections and opinions on the change from farms dependant on man power and horses to the tractor and the combine harvester.


A particular passage that I have just read reflects on grub damage to potatoes in fields ploughed with multi furrow ploughs with tractors. Where as with the single furrow horse drawn plough the grub damage was not there because the birds had to work harder, or scavenge more to get the grubs.


A good read and I have since been handed a similar book called 'Back to the plough share'. 

[Lesley Silvester]

Sounds interesting and a bit different.

[Sylvia]

I've got this book as well, I love books on agricultural history. Another good one,especially if you like horses, is A Horse in the Furrow by George Ewart Evans.

[Ina]

Thanks for that - I've made a note of it! Sounds like my kind of read... (And it 's such a good example of unintended consequences of "progress".)

[RUSTYME]

Both books are excellent , as are 'Early to rise' and 'a good living' by Hugh Barrett , telling the way rural iife was on farms from the 1930's to the 1950's .
Don't forget William Cobbetts books ' Rural Rides' and 'Cottage Economy' . They depict life as was in the 1820's . The former paints the picture of the counties of England as he , Cobbett , saw them as he traveled the land by horse and stage coach , very different times and such a fantastic insight into life as it was 200 years ago .

[Ina]

Don't forget William Cobbetts books ' Rural Rides' and 'Cottage Economy' .

Cottage Economy is on my desk as I write! Have read it several times... It's amazing what used to be thought "normal" - a lot we could learn from that attitude (if not exactly from all the methods he uses). An incredible social history, if nothing else. (Bread and small beer - the perfect breakfast for your kids before they go out to work in the fields! And tea is of the devil...  Responsible for all that's wrong with our society! Oh, and potatoes. They are behind all the rest that's wrong.)

[MikeM]

added to my amazon list. I have a large selection of rural history books, but not heard of that one, thanks.

[the great composto]

cottage economy and other older books are normally available as a free download.

http://manybooks.net/titles/cobbettw3286332863-8.html

[katie]

Anything by Adrian Bell or George Henderson are also fascinating reads.

[darkbrowneggs]

Bought a nice hardback copy of this on your recommendation, and enjoying it at present. 
 
What I is delighting me more than anything are the wonderful illustrations throughout.  Really excellent.  Thank you so much

[Odin]

Illustrations ? Pictures ? None in my copy, need to rely on my vivid imagination ? 

[Canadian Sheepfarmer]

Collis was a great writer, though at the time several publishers readers thought that he had no writing style.    Where are they now?
His auto biography 'Bound Upon a Course', is a great read too. Also the book that Richard Ingrams wrote just after his death, in a gentle way it puts to bed several myths and self delusions that Collis perpetuated about himself.
As do we all?
 
If you liked 'Whilst Following the Plough', I would think that you would also enjoy R M Lockley's' Inland Farm'. Lockley was a Welsh ornothologist and early conservationist, who took to mainstream farming during WWII after he was forced to evacuate the island of Skokholm for the duration. He had started living a self-sufficient life there as far back as 1927.
 Also his, 'The Island Farmers', about a workers farming co-op that he started , again during the 2nd world war after becoming disillusioned with paying labour wages. His plan was for all to live together and farm collectively. At the time Russia had become a vital ally in the fight against Hitler, and collective farming was thought to be something that would work in Britain by many idealists at the time. This book is fascinating from many viewpoints, as much about cooperation and human nature as anything else, plus there is a lot of farming in it too.
 
You should find them at Abebooks or Amazon. 

[benkt]

Just a quick thank-you composto for recommending 'cottage economy' to us - I've been enjoying reading it so much - a great 'old-world' view on how to live!