Crofting Then and Now (2)

Harvesting at Tong Park in 1932

The oats were harvested later in the year around September /October, when the rough weather was coming in. When we were gathering the oats we made ‘badan’-sheaves. Then a collection of twelve sheaves made an ‘adag’. Six or seven ‘adagan’ made a ‘torr’ of oats. Then a tractor came with a fork on the front of it, to lift the ‘tor’ into ‘an t-iollain’ -the stone walled stack yard. There the ‘tor’ were made into a ‘cruach chorc’-corn stack and some sheaves went to the threshing mill. You still had your day’s work to do and we often worked until dusk and then by torch light.

The trickiest thing about growing oats was getting the seed dry before it spoilt. You were constantly trying to beat the elements. Once the seed dried the threshing mill came in to separate the seed from the stalks. It was a big wooden box with paddles and the seed came out at the side of the box. This was your store of seed to be planted the next spring. I am not sure who the threshing mill belonged to, but Alec Ramsay used to drive it. Alec Ramsey had a tractor from Jimmy Buller, but I am not sure whether the threshing mill belonged to Jimmy Buller or not. Before the threshing mill they must have had another way of taking the seed off the stalk as they used to take the seed to Gress Mill to make flour. 

Roddy MacIver, Tong