Orkney Image Library

True, I haven't seen your Dad very often recently, but I could bind sheaves and stook with the best of them (or at least the second-best of them) in my day. Regards, Ian.

Stewart,
My mother is soon 94 and grew up on a farm in Ohio with only horse-drawn equipment. She said they had a binder for reaping the hay and corn. It is too difficult for her to explain it to me. I am sad that I never asked her earlier, but was hoping perhaps you could explain it to me. I have pictures of her with her doll in the shocks of hay that remind me of this picture of your father and older brother.

I would love any information that you have to offer.

Thank-you,
Karren Porter California, USA

Karren, are you a relative of Bob Porter, who died in Moline ILL. in 1982?

'Binder' was short for 'reaping and binding machine' - a machine used for crops that were handled as bound 'sheaves' (before the advent of combine-harvesters). Hay wasn't handled that way and was cut by the binder's predecessor, the simple 'reaper' or, before that, a scythe or sickle. In Britain, a 'shock' is a 'stook' of sheaves - again something not associated with hay. Hay would be heaped up to dry in 'coles' (at least in Orkney - probably in 'cocks' elsewhere, particularly in England - but basically the same thing).
OK, it's too difficult for me to explain as well.

Ian. I always thought that the person who invented the knotter on a binder was a genius. I tried to watch how it worked but couldn't work it out it was so fast. I even tried turning the throwing blades by hand and got some idea then but not exactly.

Fred,

Porter is my husband's family name, but I am not aware of the aforementioned deceased Bob. With so many Porters I'm sure there are several Bobs in the extended family, though. Both my husband's and my father (Green) claimed to be of Irish-English-Scotch descent, though. (Not sure if that is just a general idiom of the day or whether they did all mix it up way back then)Anyway most of America in the early 20th seemed to be of British descent. My mother's father was French, but her mother was a Heacock who's predecessor (a certain Jonathan) immigrated in the early 1700's before the [polite ahem] revolutionary war.

Hope that wasn't TMI.

Karren

Ian,

Wonder if a hay cock is where my mother's mother's family name came from (Heacock)! Any way I think they were fairly modern with the binder since my mother was born in 1916, and Stewart's father appears to still be using it in 1956. My grandfather used 4 horses (whose names she can still remember), but I doubt there were as sturdy as what I see in Stewarts' picture. They grew three crops, wheat, hay, and corn. OK so it all looks like hay to me. It could have been wheat.(at least I know it wasn't corn!!!!)

So the machine cut the whole stems of the plant, which were bound into sheaves, which they stacked as shocks (stooks to you), correct?

By George, I think I've got it. Thanks, I think I actually learned something.


I cannnot explain my rather odd interest in these obscure facts, but apparently there are others with the same peculiarity.

Thanks for the response.
Karren

Just lookin at your brother with the short trousers and the rubber boots is making the backs of my legs sore. Red raw they used to get walking to school in the winter. Ouch.No school run in them days. Happy times 'NOT'

I mind when we had a binder when i was peedie. It was/had a 'teeth like' blade about 3 & 1/2 feet long that moved back and forth fast, the crop then fell onto a 'sheet' that was rolling round to bring in into bundles for tying. The bundles were then stooked up in the field to dry before being taken in and built into stacks in the 'stackyard' Usually the 'steith' onto which the stack was biult was stones with spaces between them for air to flow and this helped keep the base dry.

I might be wrong,and yae might be surprised tae hear I have been wrong in a chance time!! bit wiz hid no a Shetland man by birth that invented the first knotter that was taken on by McCormack in the U S A? Anyone heard of it, or did I dream that one!!.

Karren,
Sorry I have not replied to your request. I see you have already received some information. If you look at another picture I have (picture #23376) you will be able to see a picture of my father on a horse-drawn binder. It was taken in 1938. The picture of him and my brother in the stooks was taken ca. 1956, but by then we were using a tractor to pull the binder. Our binder was converted from the horse-drawn, independantly powered from the tractor. With the horse-drawn it could be difficult if the ground was wet as the machine was geared to the big central wheel. It was completely dependant on a steady forward movement from the horses.

The type of horses used in agriculture in Orkney was the Clydesdale, a Scottish draught horse. Although not as heavy as the Shire horse from England, they were known to be strong, athletic and gentle.

Hope this is of some value to you.

Stewart

Karren, welcome to the club for people who like obscure facts.

Apparently Heacock is the US equivalent of the British Haycock, so what could be more likely than that their joint origin lies in the hay and cock we have been discussing? Not so. Hay evidently comes from a personal name or nickname, and cock from cockerel or other male bird. Be that as it may, there will have been a few folk down the years who owe their origin to what went on in, or behind, a haycock.

Hi John,
no yer no dreamin, for the kind o binder we had was a 'McCormack. That an the peedie 'grey fergie' was happy days. No sure who invented the knotter though.

Ian:

More than likely, although I don't know, all those Quakers were pretty straight-laced. Those Quakers kept good records of lineage, that is how I have been able to trace my grandmother's ancestry back to the 1600's before their emmigratin from England.

I'm seeing a few comments written in 'brough', dialect, or whatever the term may be. Can you tell me the definition of a "peedie"?

If anyone else wants to answer, that's OK.

Hello Karen,
The definition of the word 'peedie' means small.
Peedie bairn would be small child, peedie house would mean two or three rooms, peedie grain would be small helping of dinner etc.
Hope this has helped

After a bit of searching I found that the Twine Knotter was invented by John Appleby in 1877.

Is no Google great? I fund this snippet o' information on the knotter o' the binder that might be o' interest. Cyrus McCormick had moved to Chicago, built a reaper factory, and founded what eventually became the International Harvester Company. In 1872 he produced a reaper which automatically bound the bundles with wire. In 1880, he came out with a binder which, using a magical knotting device (invented by John F. Appleby a Wisconsin pastor) bound the handles with twine.
Like you Ian, as a peedie boy I tried to see ho' the knotter worked, am no a peedie boy anymore, bit I still don't ken.
Karren Porter, "peedie" means small.

Since no-one else has answered Karren, I'll have another go. 'Peedie' is an adjective widely used in Orkney (even among incomers who soon adopt it). It means 'small', 'little'. A peedie bairn; I'll be back in a peedie while; etc. An alternative, and actually older, form is 'peerie', now tending to die out - though not in Shetland I believe, where 'peedie' never caught on. In Orkney peedie is never used as a noun.
In other parts of Scotland, a 'peerie' is/was a small wooden top that could be kept spinning by whipping it. In the immortal words of Scotland's great bard, Jimmy Logan:
Sae we'll birl awa' like peeries
Or a wheen o' whigmaleeries,
Wauchlin' hame frae Auchtermuchty in the mornin'.
(NB birl = spin; whigmaleeries = wraiths; wauchlin = staggering/stumbling)
I haven't come across the term 'brough dialect'. Broad dialect yes, even rough dialect sometimes. Maybe if someone's manner of speech is both broad and rough . . ? No, I don't think so.

Please add your comments about this picture using the form below.

Comments

Your Name

Your email address - this will be shown on the page and will allow the system to notify you of further comments added to this picture.