home books videos videos search contact us links legal terms and conditions site map
Ferguson on the Farm Part One  
VHS Video or DVD, PAL format
 
Harold Beer and Stuart Gibbard  
Released October 2001
 
 
68 minutes
 
Price £15.95 including VAT
Price £15.95 including VAT
  
 
ISBN 1-903366-19-4
ISBN 1-903366-19-4
 

Harry Ferguson's system of farm mechanisation is brought to life here by some 25 implements filmed at work. Beginning with early summer cultivations and potato planting, the programme covers weed control in potatoes and kale, hay and silage-making, hedge-trimming and general farm tasks such as post-hole boring and milk-churn transport. It concludes with potato lifting, disc ploughing, earth-moving and work with the Ferguson reversible plough, leaving a companion programme to look at other winter and spring activities.
The majority of the implements are from Harold Beer’s working collection in North Devon and many were bought new. A range of Fergies provide the power, one of them still at work on the family farm where it was first used in 1949. The programme has a full commentary scripted by Stuart Gibbard, author of The Ferguson Tractor Story. The narrator is BBC broadcaster and tractor enthusiast David Holt.

 
Ferguson on the Farm - Harold Beer + Stuart Gibbard
 
  The side-delivery rake, renowned for its gentle action and quiet mechanism, was developed by Harry Ferguson’s North American division and became part of the British range in 1954. It is being operated by Mike Thorne, owner of the Coldridge Ferguson Museum.
Precision row-crop cultivation is being carried out on a field of kale using the Ferguson steerage hoe. This is the rigid type hoe that was introduced in 1947 and made in Worcestershire by John Garrington.
 
  The Ferguson spinner has been on the farm since Harold’s father bought it new in 1950, and it has been used nearly every year since. It is driven through a gearbox from the tractor’s pto and contra-rotates with the receiving reel. It has twelve tines and revolves at 120 rpm.