FARM MECHANISATION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 14, 27 October 1938, Page 8

FARM MECHANISATION.

LESS LABOUR REQUIRED. A farm of 1000 acres on which only one man is being regularly employed this years is to be found on the Lincolnshire Wolds, Avhere are situated some of the largest holdings in the county. This is the Otby House Farm, Market Rasen, on Avhich for years past Mr Edward Abraham has produced Lincoln Long wools and Lincoln Reds. It seems likely that large-scale mechanisation is to be put into practice, but this farm is also interesting in other than the purely agricultural sense. Underlying the land is a rich stratum of ironstone providing .a reserve of hundreds of thousands of tons of ore.

The property has been purchased privately following extensive tests made over a period to prove the mineral constitutents of the land. The farm, so long in the uninterrupted possession of the Abraham family has been taken over by Mr W. M. Girvan, a farmer from Perthshire, who is accustomed to large-scale cultivation—he farms altogether between 15,000 and 20,000 acres. When he came to Otby, Mr Girvan brought Avith him a Scottish shepherd from Perthshire—and no one else. Two of Mr Girvan’s sons have been engaged fairly regularly in working the land Avith tractors and Irishmen are noAv being brought in for harvest. But there is at present no permanent farm staff. The cottages stand empty, hut are being repaired and improved, but only a minimum of labour is? to be employed.