Author: Max Hadoke
The Rare Breeds Survival Trust session at ORFC, Roots and Revival: Breeds and Skills, chaired by Christopher Price, offered a look not only into the past but into a potential future of rural skills. The session covered three traditional farming skills which, though increasingly rare, are still being applied today. With traditional skills and the knowledge which surrounds them being lost to more efficient practices, more than just the skills could be consigned to history. This session provided an overview of just how much we have to save.
The Skills
Hedgelaying was described first. This practice involves the manipulation of species such as hawthorn and blackthorn to create a living wall. Tools such as bill hooks and axes are used to cut near through the boughs of scrubby trees before laying them into a hedge. These barriers could and can be used to keep livestock in or out of fields, but also provide shelter to benefit livestock welfare, retain soil by preventing run off, and generate habitats for biodiversity. But they also have a history. Hedges, some of which are 600 years old, are only laid once every generation, roughly every 30 years, usually in the style of the local area, such as Midlands, Devon or those of other areas with a history of laying. The session highlighted how three generations of a farming family can lay the same piece of hedge once each, and see a hedge rejuvenated by the next generation. Hedgerows are historical documents and write the lines of a family’s land management heritage.
Blade shearing was next on the agenda. Rather than using a mechanical shearing hand piece, the traditional shearing blades are used, which look like spring powered scissors. What followed was a poetic description of handling this tool while managing animals to remove their wool. The dance of moving a sheep (up to 130kg!) across moccasin covered feet, feeling and understanding the mood of your charge. Gently angling the shears to extract the optimum amount of wool, leaving enough for the animal’s welfare, which can even be styled in the fashion of the local area. The knowledge exchanged between shearers so they might better care for their tools and the animals they service. Blade shearing goes beyond the tool.
Finally, dry stone walling. This skill involves the moving of stones into position so that they might create barriers for livestock. Stones are held in place purely by gravity. Dry stone walling, in the past, used stones coming to the surface of ploughed fields or which were moved to make crop cultivation easier. These walls can be composed in a variety of styles and kinds of stone. The boulderlike stones of Scotland provide different walls compared to those of the fells of Cumbria or Dales of Yorkshire. But the granites, slates, or limestones can also show an area’s history, beyond even that of the farms on which they are created, through the types of stone. The science of the past can be shown as well as the art of the district, drawn stone by stone.
Beyond the Application
While these skills are useful, they might not be as feasible or practical compared to modern machinery and practices. But they are much more than their application. They are tools for managing the land and its livestock. They can tell stories of the land through family, farm and pre-historical pasts. Knowledge of the craft is carried from person to person, reaching beyond the here and now. Fundamentally, cultural connections, whether through the area where the skill is practiced or through the skill itself, are generated. In a time of disconnection, where we are seeing ever greater divisions in society and from nature, connecting through practices that are traditional, practical and even artistic, might be able to bring people together. These skills create a web of connections to history, culture, art, science and other people, which must be not only admired but taken forward to connect us to the land and each other.
About the author: I’m Max and I’m a PhD student studying the effects of grazing management on soil biodiversity at Oxford University. I focus on earthworms and microbes, and have also studied deer management in the past. In addition to my studies, I am interested in regenerative farming practice, learning how to apply rural skills such as scything, hedgelaying and coppicing, and knitting and crochet. Please feel free to email me about any of the above topics at max.hadoke@stx.ox.ac.uk.
To learn more, check out this session in the ORFC archives.
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