The exhibition – Farming Fit for the Future – at Alyth Museum [1] in Perthshire shows how some farmers in Strathmore are regenerating the health and productivity of their land for a sustainable future.
[In progress – liable to editing 7 August 2024]
Agriculture here has a history of several thousand years. It has been through many cycles of decline and renewal. Some of the most effective changes in recent centuries –the Improvements – were introduced over several decades followed a devastating run of severe weather and resulting privation in the 1690s. The state of agriculture was later documented by farmer Andrew Wight on journeys beginning 1773 around mainland Scotland [2].
The Living Field looks back 250 years to the time of Mr Wight’s journals. What did he see as the main innovations or improvements in this part of Perthshire and Angus and how do they compare to the changes in land management described at the Alyth exhibition?
First – a look at the extent of managed agricultural land today, in Strathmore and beyond.
areaS of arable and managed grass TODAY
The agricultural census [3] records the area of land within several broad catagories. Arable or tilled land is typically ploughed and sown with cereals and other annual crops such as oilseed rape, potato and vegetables. Grassland, managed as grazing or hay for livestock, is separated into short-term (grown for less than 5 years) and long-term grass. A third broad category and the largest area, known as ‘rough grazing’, occupies mainly higher ground including the lower slopes of the hills. The main areas of production are the arable and managed grass.
Fig 1. Areas of arable land and managed grass (green colouring) in the early 21st century [4]. The dashed line shows the approximate position of the Highland Boundary Fault.
These categories are not permanent. Traditionally, and today still in some areas, short-term grass is sown as part of an arable-grass sequence. Also, land can switch between arable and grass – for example, large areas of arable land were moved into grass as recently as the 1980s and 1990s.
Arable crops and grass are cultivated mainly in low-lying regions to the east and south of the country, but they extend to parts of the far west and north (Fig. 1). For the western islands and much of the west mainland, thin strands of agricultural fields trace the boundary between land and sea.
At the east-centre of the mainland, the cultivated land is delimited by the Highland Boundary Fault (approximated by the dashed grey line in Fig. 1). Arable and grass occupy lower elevations to the south of the Fault. Rough grazing and non-agricultural land extend to the north. The climate and soil to the south of the Fault support a diverse agriculture which by global standards is highly productive.
Strathmore runs north-east from just above Perth, towards Alyth and on to near the coast. The Living Field post – Can we grow more vegetables? [4] shows the topography and boundaries of the strath, while Feeding the Romans [5] describes the line of watch towers, forts and fortresses that the invaders built just south of the Fault.
Figure 2. Arable and grass fields in productive land mostly to the south of the Highland Boundary Fault (see Fig. 1) in Perthshire, Angus and Fife. Letters show (D) Dundee, (P) Perth, (A) Alyth and (M) Montrose. Coloured dots indicate centres of fields growing mostly arable (dark grey) and grass (light purple).
North of Alyth on Fig. 2, it looks as if the productive land in Strathmore is putting out ‘feelers’ – testing the conditions in the expanse of unproductive white. But these thin strands are formed by fields immediately adjacent to the rivers that flow down through steep sided glens (valleys) across the Fault and into Strathmore. The boundary between land and sea is not shown on the map, but the fields define the coastline, including the shape of the Tay estuary between Perth and Dundee.
The copious supplies of water from the north and the rich soil south of the Fault, together with the maritime climate of this region, give Strathmore its great capacity for agricultural production. Farms in the exhibition [1] lie mostly in the arable-grass but some extend to higher elevations.
Improvements by the late 1700s
A major, systematic change in land management in lowland Scotland was stimulated during the 1700s by the ideas and methods of wealthy landowners such as Henry Home (1696-1782) and John Sinclair (1754-1835). They were unsure as to how far their innovations had been taken up by other landowners and their tenants. So to get the evidence, Andrew Wight, himself a farmer, was commissioned to ride around Scotland, visiting innovative farmers and documenting their methods and results. His findings were published in 1778 and 1784 [2].
[To be continued with …..the course of Mr Wight’s travels in Strathmore, his views on farming’s capacity to change …. ]
Author / contact: geoff.squire@hutton.ac.uk or geoff.squire@outlook.com
Sources | Links
[1] For the exhibition on regenerative agriculture at Alyth Museum – the Living Field post: Farming Fit for the Future.
[2] The Living Field web has several times used Andrew Wight’s records of journeys around mainland Scotland’s farming regions, for example at The Mill at Atholl and Great quantities of Aquavitae. Wight, A. 1778-1784. Present State of Husbandry in Scotland. Exracted from Reports made to the Commissioners of the Annexed Estates, and published by their authority. Edinburgh: William Creesh. Vol I, Vol II, Vol III Part I, Vol III Part II, Vol IV part II, Volume IV Part II. All available online via Google Books. With thanks.
[4] The original map, from which Fig. 1 was derived, was constructed by Nora Quesada Pizarro and Graham Begg, working with Geoff Squire, at the James Hutton Institute, Dundee. The original was edited by the author to show approximate areas of managed arable and grass. The background data and the method of constructing this and similar maps by Hutton researchers, have been described on the Living Field web at Can we grown more vegetables. The map in Fig. 2 was constructed from grid coordinates for fields separated into broad categories of arable and grass.
Exhibition at Alyth Museum: Farming Fit for the Future. Regenerating soil. Balancing crops and livestock. Restoring biodiversity. Opening new supply chains. Lessons in the transition to sustainable food production.Cateran Ecomuseum and Bioregioning Tayside.
Farming Fit for the Future opened recently at the small local museum in Alyth, Perthshire [1]. The farms involved are each moving to regenerative and sustainable practices.
The Living Field attended the exhibition’s opening to discover more of the background from organisers of the Cateran Ecomuseum, to meet the farmers and learn about their regenerative methods.
Exhibition panels on a photograph of Strathmore, north from Dunsinnen, when a layer of cloud appeared to separate the green and brown of the lowland fields from the distant hills (photo by curvedflatlands.co.uk).
Why the need for regenerative farming? Agriculture endured a sustained depression beginning in the late 1800s – a period named the Forty Bleak Years, 1875-1914 [2]. The country could not feed itself when blockaded in 1914 and then again in 1939. Subsequent governments realised they had to end their centuries-old indifference to farming and food production.
The ensuing intensification of farming after the late 1950s achieved probably the greatest ever rise in output, but some of the technologies that increased yield also damaged soil and essential ecosystem processes and polluted the wider environment.
Today, many in farming and food see the need to repair the damage and set a more sustainable course, but only a small fraction of farms are converting. Examples are needed to show how it can be done and this is where the exhibition comes in.
Clare Cooper, a founder member of the Cateran Ecomuseum, explained how the idea of an exhibition arose out of talks between the Ecomuseum [3] and the Rapid Transition Alliance [4]. More on that below …. but first some notes on the farms and what they aim to achieve.
The farms and their transitions
The exhibition introduces the problems resulting from over-intensification, long supply chains and a disconnection between food, farming and people. It moves on to look at a varied group of farms, showing how each transitioned to regenerative agriculture and the resulting benefits.
Farms covered a range of sectors including mixed arable and livestock at Lindertis Farm and Barns of Airlie which also grows and processes hemp. There’s all-arable production at Easter Rattray Farm, pasture- and hill-grazed livestock at Kinclune Organic Livestock Farm, and three more organic farms producing varied output – South West Fullerton, East Mains Auchterhouse, and Myreside Organics. Inverquiech Farm is unusual in operating part of the land as a Permaculture system, where trees, shrubs and other perennial plants are mixed in the same space, as in a forest-garden.
A common theme was the pressing need to save, build and regenerate soil. To do this, farming needs to ensure that more organic matter, mainly from microorganisms, plants and invertbrates, is added to soil than lost from it by erosion through wind and water. Excessive loss occurs when certain factors dominate such as exposure of bare soil for long periods to solar heating, rain and wind, intrusive tillage that disrupts a soil’s cohesive networks, compaction by heavy machinery and repeated use of mineral fertiliser and pesticides.
Regenerative practices include (a) covering the ground with vegetation or mulch for as much of the year as possible, (b) replacing Intrusive, pre-sowing tillage with minimal cultivation such as direct drilling of seed, (c) raising organic matter (carbon) inputs to soil by growing perennial grass and crops, or carbon-building annual crops such as hemp, and (d) growing legumes as grains or forages that ‘fix’ nitrogen from the air into living plant matter which then turns to nitrogen-rich soil organic matter. Chemical pesticides are reduced, or not used at all as in organic farming.
Circularity, diversity and habitat
The Farms also aim for circularity – using materials from one part of the farm to benefit another, so reducing waste. For example, livestock is grazed in open fields (not in enclosures using imported feed) and the dung used as fertiliser. Most of the farms are also diversifying in terms of the range of crops and grass grown.
The regenerative practices support what researchers call Biodiversity for Agriculture or B for A – the mostly microscopic or just visible life forms that build soil, retain nutrients and give fields some resistance to hard weather and other external forces. In supporting B for A, the fields and farms also encourage the wider biodiversity in the landscape by providing food and shelter.
The organic farms report that their changed practices have brought a range of benefits. For example, the re-establihment of wet grassand at Kinclune Farm has encouraged endangered waders such as lapwing and curlew to return. South West Fullarton, Myreside Organics and East Mains Auchterhouse stress the wide-ranging benefits of their chemical-free approach for the land, the soil, the wider biodiversity and the quality of food they produce.
Origins
The exhibition stems from two innovative movements – the Cateran Ecomuseum [3] and Bioregioning Tayside [5]. Both are based in the catchment of the River Tay and its tributaries. Clare Cooper, a founder member of both gave the Living Field some background.
The Cateran Ecomuseum is unique in that its main presence is in the countryside, not primarily in a building. Here’s an extract from the Museum’s web: “In the short period of time since the creation of the first phase of the Ecomuseum and its launch in late 2019, global heating and biodiversity loss have continued to escalate and there is now worldwide recognition that widespread behaviour change to regenerative lifestyles is necessary if we are to live within planetary ecological boundaries.”
The Ecomuseum designed a three-year programme aimed at helping communities and visitors take rapid climate action and transition to more regenerative ways of living. The farming exhibition is part of this programme, and arose through links with the Rapid Transition Alliance [4], a network of international organisations engaged in practical work, research and campaigning to tackle the climate emergency. The Ecomuseum takes inspiration from the several thousand years of history during which the people of the region have repeatedly sustained their existence by changing their relationship with the land.
Bioregioning Tayside contributes through its programmes on local food production and short food chains. Clare writes: “By 2022, Bioregioning Tayside had started to think about the food theme and ran a learning journey [5] about food producers in Tayside which led me to start thinking about the transition that food producers needed to make in the light of the polycrisis.” Then continuing the theme, Bioregioning Tayside organised a well attended conference in March 2023 on Feeding Tayside through the Climate Crisis [6].
And going back to the Ecomuseum (Clare writes) … during 2022, we were also given access to the Alyth Museum and so I proposed and we fundraised for an exhibition about local food producers who were already making rapid transitions ……”
And this exhibition is the result …. But it’s more than a room lined with wall panels. Wider discussion on its main themes should influence others to begin the transition to regenerative agriculture.
Authors \ Contacts
Background to the Cateran Ecomuseum and origins of the exhibition provided by Clare Cooper (bioregioningtayside@gmail.com) and Ruth Watson (ruth@watsonconsultants.scot). Author/contact for this article geoff.squire@hutton.ac.uk or geoff.squire@outlook.com.
Ed. Many thanks to Clare Cooper and Ruth Watson for the background to the exhibition and Cateran Ecomuseum and for the invitation to the exhibition’s launch. Images on this page are photographs of wall panels taken at the exhibition’s opening.
Sources | links
[1] Farming Fit for the Future. For location, opening times, parking, etc. see Alyth Museum. The exhibition opened on Sunday 19 May 2024 with contributions from Clare Cooper, Pete Ianetta of the James Hutton Institute, Dundee and Jillian Kennedy of the Scottish Association of Young Farmers Clubs.
[2] Symon, JA. 1959. Scottish farming – past and present. Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh and London. Chapter 7 titled Forty Bleak Years : 1875 – 1914 covers the period of the agricultural depression from the severe weather of the late 1870s to the beginning of conflict in Europe. Governments relegated home farming in preference for food imports from north America, causing mass rural depopulation and the loss of much arable cropland and ploughed area. Though the author asserts at the end of the chapter that ‘The industry had suffered grievous hurt but had survived and by 1914 it was in a reasonably sound condition.’ he goes on to describe in Chapter 9, the period between the wars in these terms: “The policy of setting cheap imported food and high profit above the needs and security of a continuing society had created a feeling of profound depression in the (farming) industry.”
[4] The Rapid Transition Alliance is….. ‘a network of international organisations that are engaged in practical work, research and campaigning to tackle the climate emergency. We are united by the belief that we must act urgently to maintain a habitable climate and that our action must be at a speed and scale to match the challenge.’ More backgound at Museum of Rapid Transition: museums in a world facing existentiol crisis by Andrew Simms, 30 April 2019.
[6] Feeding Tayside through the Climate Crisis: Launch Conference and Future Plans.’On March 24th (2023), at Discovery Point in Dundee, a group of around 100 people from across Tayside and beyond met to discuss the crucial issue of how we feed our communities through the climate crisis.’
Australia. Wild plants. Indigenous knowledge. The Living Pavilion at Melbourne University 2019. The book ‘Plants – past present and future’. Plant blindness – our loss.
Recent travels [1] to see again the River Red Gums, Boxes and Ironbarks and all the other plants around the Murray River in Australia, led first to the Botanic Garden in Sydney [2] where among hundreds of species grew the grass tree Xanthorrhoea, famous for its gum but having many other uses, and the hairpin banksia Banksia spinulosa in full flower.
This Banksia, native to eastern coasts, was given its Latin name after botanist Josef Banks, who travelled with James Cook in the late 1760s, but the continent’s many Banksia’s – like many other Australian plants – had been known, named and used for tens of thousands of years before then.
Which thoughts were present on seeing a series of books on Indigenous knowledge [3] at the Garden’s shop. And reading one named Plants – past, present and future [4] was a revelation.
Plants by Cumpston, Fletcher and Head (2022) introduces many of the species that have sustained people in Australia, and makes the case for returning to these well-adapted forms as climate, habitat loss and soil degradation expose the limitations of some current agricultural practices. That’s for another article ….. but finding more about Plants led to the web presence and reports on Melbourne University’s Living Pavilion.
Living Pavilion 2019
The Living Pavilion [5] was an exhibition and centre of learning built in 2019 as a space, primarily occupied of plants, in which people could walk, see, touch, smell and wonder. It was part of CLIMARTE’s ‘ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE’ festival, 1-17 May 2019 [6]. Here’s an extract from page 9 of the the Living Pavilion report [5]:
“The landscape design transformed a seemingly unspectacular part of the campus into a haven of biodiversity and Indigenous stories through the installation of over 40,000 Kulin Nation plants, artworks, gathering spaces and soundscapes. It brought together Indigenous knowledge systems, community arts, performance, music, sustainable design and ecological science to showcase how transdisciplinary initiatives can sow the seeds of community vitalisation and environmental stewardship.”
The plants were the central feature of the Pavilion, assembled in a way that people could walk and sit among them, see, touch and smell them. Descriptive signage explained how Indigenous communities cultured plants in agriculture and aquaculture and derived many useful products from them [7]. A range of edible and medicinal plants, grown in an Indigenous Community Garden, taught the value of plants not only to people but to the wider ecosystem, including insects and other invertebrates.
For amphibian lovers, there was the Frog Fest including the Frog Soundscape which produced calls from a range of frog species in a re-creation of a waterway – the Bouverie Creek – which the university built over but which continues to flow beneath it. And there was more at the Frog Fest in the way of activities for children, like dressing as frogs, face painting and making frog life-stages in clay.
Art, craft, song and dance
Art and music was inseparable from the plants and their uses. Spaces were allocated to craftwork, singing, dance, art installations, demonstrations and soundscapes.
Artists and craftworkers taught the utility of native plants using traditional techniques. Stephanie Beaupark showed how fibres and dyes from native plants are used in weaving; while Katie West recreated a fishing net using materials and methods that few now know about [8].
Song and dance enlivened the festival, including performances from the Djirri Djirri Dance Group, The Orbweavers and The Merindas. You can get a feel for what it must have been like by visiting the performers’ web sites [8].
What resonates with the Living here is the belief that human society and culture are “an inherent and inseparable part of ecosystems”. The Living Pavilion’s logo, which can be seen on the web page is described: “The circle in the middle represents a meeting space. The water represents the creek that once flowed through the space and signifies journey and life. The plants represent flora and fauna and connection to Country and place.”
The Living Pavilion was the seventh in a series of events under the collective name The Living Stage developed during a PhD at Melbourne University by Tanja Beer. This bringing-together of people and culture with ecosystems and artistic performance continues through the project Ecoscenography – adventures in a new paradigm for performance making [9].
First knowledges book series
The book referred to above, Plants – Past, Present and Future by Zena Cumpston, Michael-Shawn Fletcher and Lesley Head, is one in a series titled First Knowledges edited by Margo Neale [3].
Another in the series is on land use and management, titled Future Fire, Future Farming by Bill Gammage and Bruce Pascoe. Here’s an extract from the publisher’s web: (the authors) ‘demonstrate how Aboriginal people cultivated the land through manipulation of water flows, vegetation and firestick practice. Not solely hunters and gatherers, the First Australians also farmed and stored food.’
An important theme in these books is that agriculture began tens of thousands of years before modern wheat, rice, maize and the other main cereals were domesticated from wild grasses. Similarly, systematic methods of land management were in place, for example to reduce the ‘killer fires’ that have caused so much destruction in recent years.
Lessons for the Atlantic zone croplands
There is much for us to learn from these books. Little is known of plants and land use in northern Britain and Ireland before to the retreat of the last ice 10,000-12,000 years ago. Modern crops have been grown here for only half that time, but before their arrival, and until recent centuries, people used wild plants for food, medicine, dyes, clothing and building.
Knowledge has been retained in written records, including accounts originating during the monastic expansion from Europe [10] and in more recent herbals [11].
Yet while some specialists are re-learning and extending plant knowledge today, the broader existence and utility of plants is unknown to most people [12]. It’s not just the knowledge that is fading – the plants themselves have also been made rare or extinguished. The recent Plant Atlas 2020 by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland [13] shows loss and extinction are continuing.
One of the main aims of the Living Field has been to show people the wealth of plant life in our region, especially the older crop species and varieties that are no longer grown and the many native plants and long-term introductions that have been used in various ways since the retreat of the ice. We will continue with that work.
The Living Field here could also learn from the Living Pavilion in Melbourne. We could bring in far more plant species and varieties for people to learn about. We could restore forgotten uses of our native and introduced species and link them to our cultures and places. And perhaps more than anything, we can feel we are not alone in the restoration of our botanical diversity – people throughout the world are doing the same.
There are organisations in the UK to help if you want to know more about plants and get involved in their conservation [14]
Sources | links
[1] The editor writes of a visit in March 2023 to Australia.
[3] First Knowledges series edited by Margo Neal. For details on all books in the series: Thames and Hudson Australia web site.
[4] Cumpston Z, Fletcher, M-S, Head L. (2022) Plants – past, present and future. Thames and Hudson Australia, 212 pages.
[5] Living Pavilion at the Clean Air and Urban Landscapes Hub where a substantial report on the project can be downloaded (cover shown above). Citation: Beer, T., Hernandez-Santin, C., Cumpston, Z., Khan, R., Mata, L., Parris, K., Renowden, C., Iampolski, R., Hes, D. and Vogel, B. (2019). The Living Pavilion Research Report. The University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
The web link left describes how this image is made from weather data.
[6] CLIMARTE an Australian charity founded 2010 ’harnesses the creative power of the arts to inform, engage, and inspire action on the climate crisis’. Web site: https://climarte.org/ The group’s ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2019 Festival ‘presented 33 socially engaged exhibitions and events … across Melbourne and regional Victoria’. The Living Pavilion was one of them. Festival web site: climarte.org/project/artclimatechange-2019 where there are links to the full programme, podcasts and other resources.
[7] Cumpston, Z. (2020). Indigenous plant use: A booklet on the medicinal, nutritional and technological use of indigenous plants. Downloadable at Living Pavilion web page at Clean Air and Urban Landscapes Hub [cover shown right, see also 5].
[8] Performing at the Living Pavilion 2019 – some current web links : artists in residence Stephanie Beaupark and Katie West || Singing and dancing from Djirri Djirri – Wurundjeri Women’s Dance group || The Orbweavers – their song Reeds Rush links several features of the Living Pavilion || and The Merindas.
[9] Ecoscenography by Tanja Beer: blog, reading group, articles and artworks, ecological design for performance.
[11] Modern herbals and books and plant lore are listed at the end of the Living Field’s Garden/Medicinals page.
[12] Plant Blindness – a human inability to see plants, differentiate between them, understand what they do, accept them as the basis of animal and human life. More at Wikipediaincluding pointers to research and teaching material e.g., Wandersee, J. H., & Schussler, E. E. (1999). Preventing plant blindness. The American Biology Teacher, 61, 82–86.
[13] The recently published Plant Atlas 2020 by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland details the serious declines in native plants and plants introduced in the distant past, contrasting with the spread of recent introductions. See the Living Field’s notes on the latest and previous atlases at BSBI Plant Atlas 2020.
[14] Want to get involved with plants? In the UK, find out more through the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland and Plantlife – both organisations promote plants through learning, training, meetings and visits, and welcome plant enthusiasts from absolute beginners to experts.
If you are in Cahors, Occitane this month, you should not miss this exhibition Nature Under Screen – Nature au crible – by Pascal Levaillant and Roselyne Corblyn, hosted by Cahors Juin Jardins [1] and held 1 to 31 March [2].
If not, then here are some of their works – see more via the links below.
Pascal and Roselyne are artists-botanists who form the Leveillant-Corblin collective [3].
Seminotheque graines du Quercy, 2024 Cahors
From the press release … “Cahors Juin Jardins welcomes the Norman duo Corblin-Levaillant (aka Roselyne Corblin and Pascal Levaillant) for an installation of contemporary herbaria which announce Spring already! Based on the annual theme of June Gardens Humus Miraculum, the duo of artists deploys all their botanical knowledge starting from humus, a miracle substance, down to the seed, exploring biodiversity in France for over a decade.”
“Both botanical artists stopover in Cahors, nourishing their exhibition with literary references and botanical (Gaspard Koenig; Marc-André Selosse, Patricia Touyre, Anne Cauquelin…) and offering several artistic and botanical pieces with poetic names (Botanical surveys, Compost escapes, Seminotheque outings…) to pay homage to the miracle of humus. To be discovered in the hall and the garden of the Chai.”
[2] Press Release: JUNE GARDENS EXHIBITION | NATURE UNDER SCREEN Shades of humus and botanical leavening. Corblin-Levaillant collective, visual artists-botanists, LE CHAI (youth hostel – 52, avenue André-Breton in Cahors) From March 1 to 31, 2024 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. > 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Litiere forestieres feuilles chene hetre charme Foret de Roumare 2023
Ed: many thanks to Pacal and Roselyne for sharing details of their exhibition in Cahors and sending the images shown on this page. Here’s to Humus miraculum, and all things botanical!
Back in 2007, soil scientist Bruce Ball and his collaborators published a research paper on VESS – Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure [1] – and released a two page summary of the methods for anyone to use, free of any charge. The two-pager was printed on the back and front of quality paper, which was then laminated to form a durable sheet that could be taken out to the field as a guide and reference to quickly estimate soil health.
Recently, the Living Field editor was working with people creating an exhibition on regenerative farming to be held later in 2024 at a museum in the Tay Catchment. Questions around good and bad soils came up – was it possible to tell the difference between them without laboratory analysis, and were photographic guides available to illustrate soil quality for visitors to the exhibition?
VESS came to mind, since, as is evident from the reproduction below, it depicts soils of different quality. And Bruce was the obvious person to contact for guidance and photographs.
Plate 1. The two-page VESS guide to soil structure [1].
VESS is an example of scientific research condensing a great deal of technical information into an easy-to-use practical guide. Intended users were agronomists and farmers, and indeed anyone who wanted to learn a bit more about agricultural or garden soil.
Here are two contrasting images of the same medium-textured soil. One under woodland (left) has very good soil structure with many roots. The other under cereal cropping nearby (right) contains compacted clods below a fairly good structured surface layer. The VESS guide indicates for each soil the likely degree of pore space through which roots could penetrate the medium to extract nutrients and water.
Plate 2. Two soils ready for Visual Evaluation, left from a woodland, right from a cereal field.
Since its initial publication, VESS has travelled to other parts of the world, including the Amazon Basin [2]. It is being adapted and trialled for new soils and regions, contributing to our understanding of global soil health.
New Book : Healing soil
Continuing his aim to bring the world of soils to non-scientists, Bruce has recently (2022) published a book titled Healing Soil – How soil health will save the planet and us [3]. The author writes:
“This book is a journey that explores the importance of our soil to our world and humanity and the connection that can be found between soil and both of these. Each of the three parts of the book contains a series of short illustrated items spotlighting a key way that soil contributes to the health of ourselves, our society and our planet. The items are illustrated either by artworks that I have created or by photographs to show the interplay between the fate of the soil and the fate of our world – from all of humanity down to the way we live our individual lives.”
Below are two examples of Bruce’s illustrations in the book.
Soil greening power. Acrylic on board. The seed in the centre produces its seedling by the greening power of soil fertility thrusting from below.
References | links
[1] Ball BC, Batey T, Munkholm LJ (2007) Field assessment of soil structural quality – a development of the Peerlkamp test. Soil Use and Management 23, 329-337.
[2] Rachel M.L. Guimarães, Afrânio F. Neves Junior, Wellington G. Silva, Craig D. Rogers, Bruce C. Ball, Célia R. Montes, Bruno F.F. Pereira. (2017) The merits of the Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure method (VESS) for assessing soil physical quality in the remote, undeveloped regions of the Amazon basin. Soil and Tillage Research 173, 75-82, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.still.2016.10.014
[3] Ball BC (2022) Healing soil – how soil health will save the planet and us. Published by Bruce Ball, Roslin, Midlothian, UK and distributed by Kindle Direct Publishing Services, Amazon, Seattle, Washington, USA. Ed: search ‘author’ and ‘title’ to find web sites for online purchase.
A World of Soil for Healing People and Planet Earth. Mixed media on paper. In the same way that soil encircles the World, when humans nurture soil-like properties they can work in unity to sustain life on Earth.
Contact
Email : bruceball62@gmail.com
Ed: many thanks to Bruce for sharing his knowledge of soils. His book [3] contains many striking illustrations that link this thin, life-sustaining layer to the future of all people.
The Edible Fungi Club (EFC) was formed in March 2022 by Gill Banks “who has a keen interest in mycology, be it recording fungi in the Tayside and Fife area through forays with the Tayside and Fife Fungi Group (TAFFG) or growing edible varieties”.
Gill writes: “I asked some people within agroecology if they would join such a group and was encouraged to see that people were interested. Because of this, senior management at the James Hutton Institute were approached and asked if it was possible to hold meetings for a club in the Living Field polytunnel, which at that time was unused. After consultation with various people at the Institute such as Hutton’s Health and Safety and Plant Health officer, and some form filling, the club had an area in which to meet.”
Edible | Exotic | Gourmet
The aim of the EFC is to provide “edible exotic and gourmet mushrooms” to people who may not have access to them (such as Lion’s mane which is a red listed protected species in the UK) and to encourage people to recycle some waste products such as cardboard and coffee grounds. The club also wishes to explore other uses of fungi such as making clothes, packaging, myco-remediation and eventually medicinal aspects.
The Institute’s Social Club kindly donated £100 to help start up, the farm staff gave bales of straw and an Aberdeenshire farmer donated 75 kg of spring barley that is used to produce grain spawn (see below).
The club charges £2 a session to cover costs of items such as wood pellets, mushroom bags, and liquid cultures, syringes, needles and so on that are required to successfully grow predominantly straw- and wood-loving mushrooms such as: Pink Oyster, Yellow Oyster, Summer Oyster, Blue/grey Oyster, King Oyster, Lions Mane, Black Pearl (a blue/grey Oyster and King Oyster hybrid) amongst others. The club can produce liquid mycelium, grain spawn (see photos below) and provide mushroom kits/substrates at a much-reduced price if members want to grow mushrooms in their home.
Grain spawn
Grain spawn is easy to use and an inexpensive method to bulk up mycelium. The process begins in a petri dish or liquid culture and can take several weeks to months depending upon the mushroom that is being grown.
In the photographs below, from left to right, we can see a petri dish with king oyster mycelium, liquid culture, and grain spawn.
The mycelium is the root-like, vegetative body of a mushroom that can be obtained in several ways, including from tissue culture, liquid culture, or spores. Liquid culture is a nutrient-rich solution that contains the mycelium and is used as a medium for growing and propagating mushroom cultures.
The mycelium when suspended in a nutrient solution, will grow, and is then used to inoculate substrate (in this case barley grain) to provide grain spawn. which will then be transferred to a medium that contains all the necessary nutrition to allow the mycelium to grow further. Eventually, the mycelium will fruit as shown in the photographs below.
Growing interest
The numbers of participants had originally been capped at 10 so that the club would have plenty of resources for its members. There are now 24 members with regular enquiries from people who wish to come along. All are welcome and our members come from within the James Hutton Institute community but also include members of the public who have heard about the club, usually by word of mouth.
Here are some of the results!
Mushroom paper
The material in the top left picture above is a version of paper made from Dryad’s saddle (Cerioporus squamosus) a basidiomycete bracket fungus also known as pheasant’s back and considered a good edible especially when it is young. This is one of the mushrooms that the EFC hope to grow in the future as it thrives on dead or dying wood. The cell walls of mushrooms are made from a biological polymer called chitin which is similar to cellulose from which plant paper can be made, so we thought that it would be an interesting thing to do.
Dyrad’s saddle proved a good candidate for paper making as it has strong fibres. The Dryad’s saddle was cut into pieces and put in a blender with a small amount of water and then blended until the mushroom became a pulp. We poured the slurry into a wooden frame with mesh underneath and let the water drain out, and then used paper towels to absorb excess moisture. Different mushrooms produce different coloured paper of differing strengths.
Food and medicinal
The second picture (next to the mushroom paper) is Lion’s mane (Hericium erinaceus), which has a long history of use in East Asian medicine. We grow it using hard wood fuel pellets and some soy hulls (to provide extra nutrition). In the UK lion’s mane is protected under Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, but it is an easy mushroom to grow as it has aggressive mycelium. Its health benefits are believed to support mental health, the immune system, brain function and stress responses. In addition, they have been reported to help people get to sleep. Depending on conditions, this mushroom can take from 3-5 weeks from grain spawn to fruit (produce mushrooms). It is a mushroom that does not taste like the average supermarket mushroom. It has a mild, sweet, taste with a firm and meaty texture.
Cooking mushrooms
The best way we find to cook mushrooms is…. Simply. We usually start off with a high heat to remove excess moisture, then lower the temperature, add some olive oil and/or butter with salt and pepper and fry. With any new mushroom it is best just to try a little amount first as some people may have some undesirable reactions which are usually due to the chitin content of the mushrooms.
The taste can change with length of cooking. For example, the third picture in the group above is of yellow oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus citrinopileatus), otherwise known as the golden oyster mushroom. This is a fast-growing mushroom with lots of fruits, and as it is a warm-weather strain, it isn’t found in the UK. This strain of oyster mushroom can be grown on a wide range of materials from supplemented sawdust, straw, coffee grounds and/or cardboard.
These mushrooms lose the yellow colour when they are cooked. If they are undercooked, they taste bitter, but if they are cooked for the correct amount of time, they have a balanced “nutty” flavour. If they are cooked until they are crispy then they can taste a bit like bacon. This species can produce mushrooms from grain spawn in as little as a week if the conditions are correct.
Author | contact
Gill has been approached to do a podcast, a talk at Dundee University and asked if she was interested in writing a book. Who would have thought so much could happen in under a year? It just shows that in this case the world is indeed your oyster (mushroom!).
Gill Banks (PhD) is a researcher based in the Agroecology group at the James Hutton Institute, Dundee. The polytunnel lies in the west side of the Living Field garden sited on the Hutton’s Mylnefield Farm.
Contact: Gill.Banks@hutton.ac.uk
Ed: thanks to Gill for this note on the Edible Fungi Club – it’s good to see the Living Field polytunnel in use again.
[Published 14 January 2024 – minor editing possible over the next few days]
Ad Gefrin museum and distillery in Wooler, opened March 2023. Life in the Northumbrian kingdoms 6th and 7th centuries. The nearby archaeological site of Yeavering. Importance of soil to archaeological insight. Fine example of local heritage and enterprise combined.
One of an occasional series on museums and botanic gardens.
It is always heartening (the editor writes) to find a local museum established and thriving. The Ad Gefrin museum and distillery at Wooler [1] in Northumberland, together with the archaeological site of Yeavering [2] are a fine example of what can be achieved away from the main centres. Yeavering takes its name from the Celtic Gefrin – the Hill of the Goats, so Ad Gefrin is By the Hill of the Goats [3]. The archaeological site lies several miles north of Wooler.
The museum and distillery opened in March 2023. Go through glass doors and immediately the stunning dome of the entrance hall rises above. It was made in the shape of a whisky barrel. The dome is lined by many small, rectangular pieces of pine, sourced from wind-blown timber, each piece prepared and fixed in place by a local craftsman.
The Great Hall
The museum aims to entertain and educate on the Anglo-Saxon, Northumbrian dynasty that governed the region in the 6th and 7th centuries. They established Yeavering from their main base on the coast at Bamburgh. By 700, the site had been deserted, its precise location unknown until rediscovered in the mid-1900s.
The museum reproduces a central feature of the Yeavering site – a building called the Great Hall. From the museum’s entrance, a spiral stairway (visible in the photograph above) leads to a door into the replica. Visitors can walk around one half of the hall, its walls covered in tapestries and carvings, some shown on this page. The other half is virtual, viewed through a screen and letting the viewer appreciate the full length and interior design of the building.
Linger for a few minutes and the virtual half comes alive as people appear, tell stories and sing of the kings and the life at that time. It’s an ingenious way of drawing peope in, making them feel almost as if they were there.
The museum displays some of the objects found during archaeological digs at Yeavering and models of some of the buildings including the Great Hall and a tiered Grandstand.
View from the real to the virtual half of the Hall (left) where actors and singers (right) tell stories of the life at the times of the Northumbrian kingdoms.
Yeavering archaeological site
The site was revealed through examination of crop marks on an aerial survey of the region in the dry summer of 1949. It was first excavated from 1953 to 1962 and the results published 1977 in an authoritative report by Brian Hope-Taylor, available today as a free download [4]. The report and its author have been widely praised [5]. It remains an engaging and impressive read, and not only for archaeologists. Enquirers from any discipline will appreciate the logical approach and the analysis of uncertainty in reaching conclusions from limited data, especially on the structure and functioning of different buildings and enclosures. The report repeatedly stresses the importance of soil to archaeological method (see below).
The site lies on an area of flattish land, known as the whaleback, the northern side descending steeply to the River Glen and the southern rising to the hills of Yeavering Bell. The River Glen joins the River Till which then feeds into the Tweed. Much evidence of occupation and farming since the neolithic have been found in this area. A large Iron Age hill ‘fort’ and many dwellings were built at the top of Yeavering Bell and the lower land around the Rivers Glen, Till and Tweed is dense with pre-historic settlement and signs of farming.
Archaeological studies at the site have continued and were active in summer 2023, but by October the exposed surface had been recovered with soil to protect it over the winter.
Soil – AgriculturE – food
The main agricultural land use around Yeavering today is grazing for livestock, both sheep and cattle. Grain has been grown in this area. One of the boards in the museum states that rye, barley, wheat and oats have always grown well in the Millfield Basin – an extensive area of fertile land to the east of the Yeavering site. And the crop marks that reveaed the outline of the buildings were first seen when oats covered the land in 1949.
Of interest to Living Field readers may be the importance of soil condition, both in locating the structures initially and then photographing their exposed outlines. Cropmarks are ‘negative structures’ differing from the surrounding soil in the the type of soil that filled the space when the original structures rotted or were removed [4]. If topsoil fell into the spaces, it would probably have contained more organic matter than the surrounding subsoil, and hence have a greater capacity to hold water.
Plants growing in this deeper, more organic material may absorb and reflect a different amount or a different quality of incoming solar radiation. Especially in a dry year, plants here remain greener and unwithered for longer into the summer.
The excavations also reveal the extent to which human habitation and farming influence the erodability of soil, its movement across and out of the area, leading to variation in depth. ‘Centuries of ploughing’ had eroded topsoil from the crest of the site and repositioned it towards the edges. The archaeologists could even tell whether a sub-soil had been previously cultivated or not by its feel and sound when turned with a trowel [4].
LIVESTOCK
Many animal bones and bone-fragments were found at the site. Analysis by ES Higgs and M Jarman [4, 6] showed cattle were by far the predominant livestock rather than sheep, pig or goat. Yet it’s the age when the catttle were killed that tells us something of the pressures on livestock farming at that time, pressures not much different from what they are today.
Livestock need to be fed through the winter to keep them alive. Living grass may prove insufficient, so the herd is sustained with stored hay or grain. Breeding cows that perpetuate the herd have to be prioritised to ensure they survive. But what of the general cattle if feed is likely to run out.
Higgs and Jarman propose that cattle were killed early in their growth cycle, well before they reached full size. The collection of bones indicate age at death had two peaks – 6-11 months and 24-30 months. The first group, born in late spring and early summer, were killed over the following winter, presumably to leave enough feed for the rest of the herd. The second group were fed through the first winter, then a second, before being killed. The relatively short life-span of the cattle points to the pressure on farming to balance size of the herd, winter feed and the need for food.
Today, overwintering cattle, whether kept indoors or on grass, have their food supplemented by grain or silage, possible with concentrates, sourceable from a range of local and international supply chains. At Yeavering, they had only what they could produce and save from local fields.
The future
The Yeavering / Ad Gefrin site is now managed by the Gefrin Trust [2]. The following is extracted from their web site – “In 2002 Ad Gefrin, the physical site and the ongoing story, passed into the hands of The Gefrin Trust. Our aim is to preserve, investigate and recount the history and impact of this important site in the north Cheviot hills, from prehistory right up to the latest investigations and finds.” The Trust’s web offers several free downloadable publications on the region’s history and archaeology.
[2] Yeavering archaeological site: The Gefrin Trust describes the continuing excavations and offers several free downloadable publications on the history and archaeology of the region. See also Canmore – Excavations at Yeavering Bell.
[3] The goats in the name have been around for millenia. They were once farmed, then went feral and now form a wild landrace of the British Primitive Goat. They are declining and under threat of extinction: Northumberland National Park; British Primitive Goat Research Group.
[4] Hope-Taylor, B (1977) Yeavering – an Anglo-British centre of early Northumbria. English Heritage. Report with many figures and plates downloadable at the Archaeology Data Service; and the Gefrin Trust.
[6] ES Higgs and M Jarman: the report [4] gives no information on the people who analysed the animal bones from Yeavering. Higgs and Jarman were well-known archaeological pioneers and scholars who made major contributions to studies of the past e.g., Higgs, E. S. and Jarman, M. (1975) Palaeoeconomy. In E. S. Higgs and M. Jarman (eds.) Palaeoeconomy, 1-7. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
[7] For more on the analysis and meaning of animal bones in archaeology, see this online publication: Baker P, Worley F (2019) Animal Bones and Archaeology – Recovery to Archive. Historic England Handbooks for Archaeology.
This project – Mapping Land Use, Climate Change and Food – has developed over the last couple of years from an idea into funded reality and now SEDA Land is looking for volunteers to help organise events around Huntly.
AIMS
The Project will work with the community of Huntly [1], Aberdeenshire, to investigate the impact of climate change and alternative food systems on the local area.
SEDA Land writes: “We will investigate the long-term effects of land-use decisions on climate change and the food chain using a variety of tools over the next three years. This will be a collaboration between the community, artists, scientists and local landowners. We will also involve innovative food producers and farmers.”
All the tools proposed in this project are aimed to help the community understand and visualise a possible alternative and productive ecological landscape that serves the climate, the community and which could lead to innovative new forms of employment in the area.
This proposal addresses three of the recommendations from SEDA’s “A New Vision for Land Use in Scotland 6 Conversations” published in partnership with the SRUC and the James Hutton Institute in August 2021, in particular the healthy food strategy [2].
SEDA Land is part of the Scottish Ecological Design Association (SEDA).
Advertisement for the Land Mapping project
Why Huntly?
Huntly was chosen because it is a good example of a mid-sized (population of 4,460) highland town, where surrounding farmland is predominantly used for grazing. We will be seeking to dispel the stereotypical view of the Highlands as sheep-grazed uplands, and explore the potential for alternative land uses – introducing the local community and local farmers to the scope for growing food on slopes; seasonal food; foraged food and indoor-grown food. We will also demonstrate that alternative farming brings increased biodiversity, carbon storage and other benefits.
SEDA Land already has strong connections with Huntly Development Trust, The Deveron Project (a local arts group) and The Gordon Schools (local primary and secondary schools). The development trust owns 63 acres of community land at Greenmyres, five miles southwest of the town. This should permit any residents who are inspired by our project to start using the land in a regenerative way for themselves. We have also established links with Beldorney Estate where we are able to run workshops and the arts projects.
“I think it is really helpful to use art to get past the usual narratives in which there is a designated ‘bad actor’ – a ‘villain’ to protest against. I think art can be great at showing our common humanity and showing that the ‘villain’ is not a person or group of people, but certain aspects of human nature, and of course, climate change itself”.
Sophie Cooke, artist
Toolbox
These tools are intended to engage people in new ways of thinking about the land, climate change and their food systems.
An interactive computer game – the digital game is being developed by students at Abertay University in Dundee to highlight the complex interrelatedness of climate change, biodiversity, land use and food sourcing . Primarily aimed at 13-45-year-olds, the game will require players to balance the uses and products of land to the best advantage of the community and the planet, measured in outcomes such as carbon capture, food sovereignty and health and well-being. We believe it is easier for people to visualise the palimpsest of issues involved if these can be presented graphically and innovatively.
Biophysical data collection – The community will seek to define its present and future needs with the help of scientists and artists, addressing issues such as resilience and a “just transition”. Data will be collated about land use and food sourcing both locally and globally – covering soil health, vegetation and climate. New information will be gathered about local food sources and waste management.
Field workshops – Professionals (soil scientists, regenerative farming experts, forestry experts, food entrepreneurs etc) will run workshops with the Huntly community, local farmers, foresters and landowners to develop/complement the ecological themes above. Artists will use creativity and storytelling to communicate ideas between the various stakeholder groups.
Artistic pieces – Two community projects are planned to be run by a visual artist and a poet to produce works of art in the landscape around Huntly relating to the aims of the project and using material from the workshops.
Mapping
We intend to use maps of all types to make it easier for people to visualise what effect climate change is expected to have on their local area – including in scenarios such as if there is no change to the current farming practices and in the event of bold and imaginative alternatives being adopted. These will include maps showing existing soil types, water, climate etc. along with maps drawn up with the community using local knowledge and drone footage.
Examples of maps and mapping are given on the Living Field editor’s curvedflatlands web pages [3].
Mapping land use: an area (not Huntly) divided into fields and other land parcels by usage – grass for livestock (left), arable crops such as barley and wheat (centre), and the remaining agriculture and woodland (right). Data from the James Hutton Institute. Original on curvedflatlands web [3].
The above text and image, apart from the maps, are extracted from the full project description available available as a PDF file [4].
For further info or if you want to be involved, contact Gail Halvorsen by email: land@seda.uk.net.
Bere – the barley landrace. Exploring its potential with growers. Forming a Bere network. Visiting sites in July 2023. Shared expertise and experience.
By Lawrie Brown
An exciting new initiative involving volunteer growers across Scotland is using a tricot participatory selection approach [1] with the purpose of understanding and selecting the best Bere varieties for different production systems and locations. We are building a growing network of interested growers, currently 16 in total, who were sent starter packs early in the spring. Each participant received seed for 3 barley types, 2 Beres (with different origins) and 1 control (a modern cultivar) which have been sown this season and observations, samples and measurements are being collected.
Taking the view on our bere barley trip around Scotland (Lawrie Brown)
Edinburgh to Orkney| Hebrides to Aberdeen
In June, we had the tough job of visiting as many of the participants as possible. This involved a road trip across Scotland visiting a range of sites from Edinburgh and Aberdeen to Stirling, Argyll, Oban and the Isles of Coll, Lismore, South Uist and Orkney. This was a fascinating trip as we learned of the various personal motivations and interests for growing Bere barley from bread making to distilling and heritage conservation to feeding cattle. We met some really interesting people along the way who opened their doors to us and it was great to see small pockets of Bere being reintroduced to sites around Scotland.
The trial sites this year were small (usually plots of 2 x 6 m) as we had a restricted amounts of seed for distribution. However, next year we will be able to supply larger quantities for larger trial areas and more volunteer participants. Growers were free to apply whatever treatments they wished with some applying seaweed and/or manure as fertiliser while others trialled different tillage treatments. Most were grown without any weed control.
Left – on a smallholding near Colintraive, Argyll, this newly cultivated land had been overrun with rushes and bracken. Centre – on the Isle of Lismore where different tillage methods have been trialled. Right – at Dunrobin Castle where bere is grown with wild flowers for traditional whisky making. (Lawrie Brown).
Shared experience | sharing knowledge
We are looking forward to collating all the data at the end of the season so we can see if specific beres prefer particular environments or treatments and the results will be shared with all growers through online groups and/or face-to-face workshops.
By working together and sharing experiences and information we hope we can all learn something new about the opportunities this ancient grain, Bere barley, can offer Scottish growers.
Left upper – at Glen Lonan near Oban, plots had a seaweed addition plus a kelp foliar spray. Right upper – at a croft on South Uist, bere sown late but already showing advantage of fertilisation with seaweed. Left lower – enjoying the weather in Isle of Lismore. Right lower – plots near Stirling. (Lawrie Brown)
Join the Bere net?
If you would like to get involved in next year’s trials and join the network or find out more, feel free to contact me on lawrie.brown@hutton.ac.uk.
Lawrie works at the James Hutton Institute as a Research Scientist in the Plant Soil Interactions group of Ecological Sciences. Lawrie’s colleagues Molly Brown and Tim George were also involved in visiting the disperse and remote locations around Scotland.
References | sources | links
[1] ‘Tricot’ is short for Triadic comparison of technology options – “a research methodology that helps farmers to identify the most suitable technologies for the local conditions of their farm .… engages farmers as ‘farmer researchers’ in the testing or validation of new crop varieties and other promising technologies”. To find out more about the Tricot approach, visit the Alliance Bioversity & CIAT site at Tricot Aproach. Guide for large-scale participatory experiments. The 2020 report by van Etten and co-authors can be downloaded there. The Alliance’s wider aims in climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation and malnutrition an be viewed at their home page.
[2] For more about bere on this web site: Bere barley at the Living Field gives a introduction to the plant and crop . Bere country shows areas grown with bere and barley in the first crop census in Scotland, 1854. Bere in Lawson’s Synopsis for the different forms of bere and other old barley varieties trialled by the Lawsons (seedsmen) near Edinburgh in the 1800s. For links to all this web site’s articles on bere, including recipes, see Bere line – rhymes with hairline.
Upper – Lauriston Farm, Edinburgh, the first to be sown back in March 2023, the grain to be supplied to a local bakery. Middle -at Granton Walled Garden, Edinburgh, where the modern cultivar was showing signs of manganese deficiency. Lower – on the Isle of Coll, where the modern cultivar was struggling to survive. (Lawrie Brown)
Ed: thanks to Lawrie for introducing the Bere net – pleased to hear that the article has helped to recruit more growers (11 Oct 2023)
Being the first part of an article by singer and musician Russ Clare on a song about grain crops and their importance in the folk tradition.
History of a song
The corpus of rural England’s traditional balladry is admired for its engaging stories from the past still relevant today, and beautiful melodies often with a quirkiness towards time signature and modality. It’s a treasure-trove for singers. One such that I love to sing is All among the barley, also commonly known as The Ripe and Bearded Barley:
Come out, it's now September, the Hunters' moon's begun
And through the wheaten stubble is heard the frequent gun
The leaves are turning yellow, and fading into red
While the ripe and bearded barley is hanging down his head
Chorus: All among the barley, who would not be blythe? When the ripe and bearded barley is smiling on the scythe
The wheat is like a rich man, he's sleek and well-to-do
The oats are like the young girls, they're thin and dancing too
The rye is like a miser, all sulky, lean and small
While the ripe and bearded barley is the monarch of them all
The Spring is like a fair maid that does not know her mind
The Summer is a tyrant of most ungrateful kind
But the Autumn is an old friend who pleases all she can
Brings the ripe and bearded barley to gladden the hearts of man
Autumn hawthorn by Russ Clare
I came across this little folk song gem in 1974 while browsing a poetry anthology in a Nottingham school library. My attention was captured by its portrayal of the changing seasons, setting the scene for a playful imagination of cereal crops and with special praise for barley, the brewers and distillers source of alcohol. I fondly imagined the song to have had a life in the past among the country people of rural Leicestershire, where I was living at the time. A likely favourite at harvest homes, those end of harvest celebrations of feasting, drinking, and singing. While All among the barley deserved a place in my growing repertoire for singing in folk song clubs, in this case no tune was given, merely a credit to Folk Songs of the Upper Thames. I had been unaware of the collection, and in those pre-internet times further enquiry soon came to a halt. So the hunt was on for a suitable melody.
The search ended with a dance tune, TheTip Top Polka, a personal ‘ear worm’ from listening to the brass band accompaniment for the Britannia Coconut Dancers on their Easter Saturday procession around Bacup, their home town in Lancashire. My mind attached All among the barley‘s words to the melody. It seemed a near perfect fit, and I have stuck with it ever-since, giving the song an airing each Autumn. Listen to a recording here.
Barley by Russ Clare
All Among the Barley – a novel by Melissa Harrison
It’s likely I had the song in mind when, in September 2018, I noticed an intriguing newspaper review of All Among the Barley, a novel by Melissa Harrison. It is set in Suffolk in the 1930s, where local fourteen year old Edie meets Constance, a London writer on a mission (ostensibly) to chronicle the traditions of an isolated rural community challenged by modernity.
Harrison has garnered much critical acclaim for her evocation of a way of life in decline – the closeness and beauty of nature, more bountiful and diverse than now; age-old patterns of work driven by the seasons; the tension created from clinging to the familiar while recognising the need to embrace innovation. In a closing scene, following the story’s tragic conclusion, Edie’s grandfather sings to her. She is comforted by his songs, recognising the continuity they represent in the history of her family and home; songs passed down the generations.
In fiction, Edie heard her grandfather sing All Among the Barley. But the song has a real-life story of its own, about its origin and popularity, and its telling needs first a consideration of the nature of traditional folk song.
Harvest by Russ Clare
The song collectors
We will be forever in debt to Victorian and Edwardian song collectors for their rescue of so much of our traditional folk heritage, seemingly heading for extinction as singers aged and their art succumbed to rural depopulation, urbanisation and popular entertainment in the music halls. Between 1890 and 1920, Cecil Sharp, Lucy Broadwood, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frank Kidson, and Percy Grainger, notable among others, wrote down thousands of song lyrics and tunes from country people, travelling widely, often by bicycle, in their search for singers. Sharp, in particular, was driven by an ideological attempt to use folk song as a resource to establish a National music with an identifiable English style; Vaughan Williams, though less ideological was arguably more successful in that pursuit.
In his essay, English Folk Song: Some Conclusions (1907), Sharp promoted the idea of anonymous community authorship of songs and their subsequent adaptation as they were passed around and down generations in a purely oral manner. It is unlikely, however, an oral tradition can survive exclusively alongside written communication – a degree of coexistence is more likely.
A community’s songs must be either composed from within, learned by listening to other singers or obtained from printed sources: the relative importance of these routes is keenly debated. Songs on commercially produced broadsides and chapbooks – written by artisan scribes or purloined from other sources – were commonly sold on the street from the 16th century. They were very popular, for it is a myth, although a popular notion, that illiteracy among the rural working class was widespread before 1700 and beyond. The work of folk song scholar, Steve Gardham, does support the idea that many songs, if not most, entered the tradition from these written sources. His analysis of 705 songs found in oral tradition in England between 1840 and 1940 showed 88% had their earliest extant version in some form of urban commercial production (Traditional Song Forum online address September 2020, from 47:50). It is, however, widely accepted, as Sharp first suggested, an oral process that turns a song from whatever source into a traditional folk song. Shared in a community by listening and learning, songs have been adapted and shaped by singers’ inherent creative talent and passed on to succeeding generations, thus accounting for the rich lyrical and musical variation found by collectors.
Thresher by Russ Clare
Origins of a song
So what of the origins and traditional status of All Among the Barley?
The earliest record of it is a composition by Elizabeth Stirling, published in 1851 as a four part (SATB) choral arrangement in Novello’s Part Song Book. Stirling (1819 – 1895), a career church organist and composer who studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, enigmatically credits the lyrics to A T who has never been identified. Speculation among music scholars that it might be Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 – 1892) is not backed by hard evidence, but they were contemporaries and both living in London in the 1840s, so a song writing partnership is not inconceivable. Moreover, in the opening verses of the The Lady of Shalott (1832), there is some resonance with All Among the Barley‘s lyrics:
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye...
.......
Underneath the bearded barley,
The reaper, reaping late and early....
An indication of a common author, or mere coincidence?
Sheaves and pitchfork by Russ Clare
A song spreads far and wide
A judging panel of Novella’s collection awarded 2nd prize to All Among the Barley, and, among Stirling’s various organ compositions and song arrangements, it was, and remains Stirling’s most popular work, for which the sheet music is still available. It soon became a frequent choice for amateur choirs, as in the inaugural concert of Weymouth Choral Society on February 26th, 1862, and a concert given by Bethlem Hospital (Bedlam) Glee and Madrigal Club on 17 March 1879.
Writing in English Dance and Song magazine in 1967, Tony Wales cites several sources indicating the song’s popularity in schools well into the 20th Century. All Among the Barley soon found its way to publishers of songbooks such as The Fashionable Songbook (Routledge, 1865) and of broadsides across the country, including J Harkness of Preston in (1874) among many.
Stirling’s song also became popular in the USA; the Library of Congress records an arrangement in three parts for women’s voices (Lee & Walker, Philadelphia, 1871), and a version with a message from the Women’s Temperance Society in Living Waters—A Collection of Popular Temperance Songs, Choruses, Quartets (Peters, J. L., New York, 1874):
All among the Barley, wander you and I
Tho' we love the smiling Barley, we shun the dreadful Rye
Tho' we love the happy Barley, we shun the dreadful Rye
It was also included in resources for schools, as in The Golden Robin (W.O. Perkins, Boston 1863).
A popular song in print, then, and the work of a musician and, perhaps, a lyricist too, who were some steps removed from its bucolic setting. Instances of the song in oral tradition are surprisingly sparse, however. Among a plethora of printed sources, Steve Roud’s eponymous Folk Song Index cites All Among the Barley for nine singers, eight with records made between 1914 and 1974 (a ninth is undated). So, an enduring circulation among country singers in 20th Century England is suggested, and all evidence is consistent with All Among the Barley entering the tradition from written sources traceable to Sterling’s original score.
Stubble field by Russ Clare
One song collector and one singer deserve more attention
Alfred Williams (1877 – 1930) collected folk songs from the Upper Thames Valley in Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Oxfordshire. In contrast to Sharp and other materially comfortable, middle class collectors, Williams was born into working class poverty – in the village of South Marston, near Swindon. He was a half-time farmhand at eight, full-time by eleven, and a Swindon railway factory worker for 23 years. Williams was, nevertheless, an effective autodidact. Rising early to work before a factory shift and resuming late into the night, he published several volumes of poetry and social history, drawing on a love for his native Wiltshire countryside, and a commitment to recording the local people’s way of life. Along the way he found time to learn several languages, including French, Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. His most enduring work, Life in a Railway Factory documented the drudgery that led to his health break down and reliance on writing for a living.
Between 1914 and 1916, Williams cycled thousands of miles collecting the words of nearly 800 songs; a selection of some 200 were published as Folk Songs of the Upper Thames in 1923 “The greater part of the work of collecting the songs must be done at night, and winter is the best time, as the men are then free from their labours after tea.” On one such cold, night time journey Williams collected The Ripe and Bearded Barley from Henry Sirman, a farm hand of Stanton Harcourt. Williams lacked the skills to note down tunes, but the songs’musicality was not his prime concern; he was more interested in the significance of the songs in the lives of his informants. His own life was tragically short, worn down by poverty and a punishing work schedule.
Autumn beech leaves by Russ Clare
To its considerable surprise and delight, the folk music scene of the 1970s discovered a traditional singer living, and hiding in plain sight, in Norfolk. Walter Pardon (1914 – 1996), a carpenter, passed his entire life, apart from four years war service at Aldershot, in the village of Knapton. He had a repertoire of around 150 songs, mainly learned by listening to family members. As a younger man there were few opportunities for social singing or public performance so he sang for his own entertainment, continuing in the isolation of the family cottage long after both parents had died.
Walter’s cousin Roger Dixon, a history teacher, aware of the interest Walter’s singing would arouse, recorded 20 songs and passed the tape to professional folk singer, Peter Bellmay. A late flowering singing career followed for Walter, who performed at clubs and festivals, recorded several CD albums, and sang in Washington at the USA’s 1976 bi-centennial celebrations, before retirement at 75 in 1989. His repertoire is notable for having several exclusive or rarely collected songs, including All Among the Barley. Sung to an approximation of Stirling’s tune, it can be found on Walter’s CD Put a bit of Powder on it, Father and in The British Library Sound Archive.
All Among the Barley has retained its appeal. In the 1980s Cheltenham singers, Mike and Jackie Gabriel, had the lyrics but no tune so composed their own. Robust, invitingly singable, and very much in an English traditional style, it has become, almost, the exclusive melody of choice for today’s singers. Several interpretations can be found on Youtube and variation in words and music shows the ‘folk process’ still at work.
The second part of Russ Clare’s article Social and environmental changes during the life of a song will be published later on this web site.
