How to get hold of a vintage mattock?

Do you have a tip shop? I have been told there’s often decent old tools at very reasonable prices.

 

The last sentence is something i have been thinking about the last few days. Do modern farmers, apart from incidental moving a bale here or there or such like, do any kind of manual labour at all as most of their time seems to be spent just sitting on machinery from what I see.

Seems 90% of their time is spend sitting on their arse of various different machines.

I am not saying they are lazy as I am sure it is more a part of keeping up with the evolutionary arms race to get the highest yields possible and make most efficient use of your time.

I want to go back the the 'old ways' using only hand tools and am not doing it for monetary incentive so of course it is a different kettle of fish in my case.

 

Well the pick serves the same use on either tool doesn't it? as the mattock pick is also for dealing with stones and such I think?

Pickaxe specializing in harder stuff then while mattock mainly for soil and the pick for the tougher hard stuff when you run up against it in digging?

 

Depends on the type of farming, lifestock tends to involve more physical work, sheep in particular, fences still need to be repaired, drains unblocked, gutters fixed, fallen trees soughted ect. Also fitting equipment to the back of a tractor can be a heavy job.
Smallholdings can be quite labour intensive, pulling leeks on a cold morning, lifting a few carrots and parsnips for the shop or veg box it all adds up.
Quite often it's contractors driving the equipment and the farmer is in the office shouting at the feed rep/fertiliser rep/ DEFRA or probably just at a computer filling out forms for subsidies, surveys, livestock movement, weedkiller usage etc.

 

Arable farming is only possible by using large machinery to give efficiency in labour. In my grandfathers day(1897) 1 man could harvest 10 acres of corn in a season (10 weeks of 60 hours). Today 1 man driving a combine harvester can cut, thresh, clean grain and chop the straw of 10 acres in an hour.
Sadly the process netts little if any profit.
The current price to the farmer of wheat for example is little different to the price his father would have received in 1984. A loaf of bread costing you £1.50* contains wheat sold for £0.09, and earns up to 0.09pence in gross profit
*loaf cost in 1984 £0.45
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/czoh/mm23
https://www.macrotrends.net/2534/wheat-prices-historical-chart-data
Why would they do it by hand ??

 

Yes that is the impression I got. I was surprised when my mum told me how much of it is outsourced now.

 

Why do they farm if they are not making a profit? Also how do they pay for the 100s of grand worth of machinery they all seem to have?

Even if they made no money they still have the land, probably bequethed over generations? so in better standing than the average jo with a mortgage? Or are they too living from hand to mouth due to debt and such?

Far from the OP topic but interested nonetheless.

I wasn't saying they should do it by hand. I pointed out exactly the same that it would not be worth it for them. On the other hand I have browsed some more intensive farming forums and quite a few do pine for the old 'dog and stick' farming as they call it. So there is a why.

 

I was born on a farm.
Well, my Grandma firmly told me when I was about 10 years that "Farming is a wonderful way of life but no way to make a living" She was at that time a widow of a farmer who she married in 1926. They had existed through the Great Depression and then WW2. Grandfather passed away in 1951 leaving an estate of £632 17s 6d. nett ,dying 'with his boots on' ie still farming aged 73years
Her further advice was to seek any other occupation.
60 years on, I still look wistfully over a farmers gate, while wondering if she was right.

 

They do make a profit, not big but a profit, also there is lots of tax exempitons, ever wonder why farmer drive big posh cars, it's a way of getting money out of the buissness for your shelf also you can but living exspenses againist the farm etc

Farming has got into the tech now, self steering tractors with GPS can be good till it goes wrong, like driver a sleep and the GPS doesn't know of the pole in the middle of the field, expenive bang,

Last year farm near me, 160 acres of ferterizing in 1 day using GPS tractor + fert spreader, this year, same feilds/tractor/spreader it took 3 day, why, the tractor couldn't pick up GPS and the spreader STOPS working and NO manaul over ride on the fert spreader

 

It is my belief that you are Soilhugger at another place, judging by your style, circumstances and demeanour. I claim the traditional £5 , adjusted for inflation and time spent addressing your ceaseless enquiries. Good value at £75 per hour I would think!

 

Interestingly, these devices also report back to source, just like Alexa. It is alleged that they can respond by termination if subscription is ceased , it is also said that the units stolen from machinery in Ukraine magically cease to work if/when installed 'elsewhere' to the east.
I wonder why ?

 

@Gentle-touch Hows the search for the mattock/pickaxe going?
A couple of other places to look might be local agricultural shows and Traction engine/tractor rallies.
I can remember Jill Gascoine in "The Gentle Touch" in the early eighties.

 

As for farmers some make good money, for others it's a life style choice; just as choosing to try and be self sufficient on a couple of acres is a life style choice.

 

It's being said had the farm machinery stolen here is because of the war in Ukraine, GPS units on tractors have been stolen, so there must be a market for them

 

I have heard that, the sanctions cause there to be a demand for components, especially with GPS accuracy being critical. The ability to reprogram from afar opens pandora's box, so to speak. The ability to move the GPS grid, a further aberation. Even washing machines have their uses beyond laundry day!