Harvest and springtime on Eric Ward’s farm Thirkleby Warren near the village of West Lutton in North Yorkshire recorded by wife Bernice between June 1959 and May 1960. A new combine-harvester competes with an older tractor pulled harvester in fields of oats, wheat and barley. Another traditional faming method, a seed-fiddler, is recorded being used to sow a winter crop. Various farm animals also feature including pigs as well as cattle and sheep with their calves and lambs during spring. A...

Harvest and springtime on Eric Ward’s farm Thirkleby Warren near the village of West Lutton in North Yorkshire recorded by wife Bernice between June 1959 and May 1960. A new combine-harvester competes with an older tractor pulled harvester in fields of oats, wheat and barley. Another traditional faming method, a seed-fiddler, is recorded being used to sow a winter crop. Various farm animals also feature including pigs as well as cattle and sheep with their calves and lambs during spring. A farmworker also finds what appears to be fledgling Tawny owl in a field and the film begins with a partridge sitting in the farm’s orchard. In an orchard a partridge sits in the shade of a tree. [Blank] The partridge continues to sit in the grass beside the tree changes to pigs running up and down their sty. In the farmyard a man holds an owl chick, he releases it into a field, and it tries to fly away. It doesn’t get far and the camera chases after it finding the chick laying in a field of straw. The man comes over and feeds it and it tries to fly away again. However, it lands again in the field not far away. After a moment it tries again and flies off into a hedge. Bach at the pigsty a water hose is used to water the animals who all drink hungrily. A tractor parked on the edge of a field changes to a man walking up and down using a seed-fiddler to sow seed. In the farmyard a combine-harvester is carefully and slowly unloaded from the back of a flat-bed lorry. In an oat field a tractor pulls a harvesting machine on which sits a second man besides the tractor driver. In another field a flock of sheep grazing. In a third the combine-harvester seen previously works to harvest a wheat crop intercutting with the tractor-harvester in the oat field. In one field the harvesting is completed with sheaf's now lay of the ground. Men work to collection the bundle to make stooks while in another field the tractor pulled harvester continues its work driving up and down cutting its crop possibly of barley. On the edge of a field the combine-harvester unloads its cargo of grain into the back of a truck. The truck drives away as the combine returns to work harvesting more wheat before unloading its grain into a second lorry. A series of grain fields some harvested, others not or part way through. Back on the farm a cow and her calve in a pen, the young one trying to feed. Back in the grain field the harvest continues with a combine-harvester driving up and down the field unloading its grain into trucks. Back on the farm a rake is used to move the grain down a chute into sacks which are carried away once full. In the fields the straw bundles are loaded onto a wagon by men with pitchforks while a conveyor transfers them from the wagon to the top of a large bale, another large bale next to it being supported by wooden posts. Beside a track or road two men shovel gravel or stone onto the back of a flatbed wagon changing to a tipper truck unloading a cargo of stone or gravel into the same spot. A steamroller helps with road repair travels along a farm tracking pressing down the stone and gravel seen previously. Beside a farm building a blacksmith uses an acetylene torch to cut a piece of metal from part of a roller. In a pen beside another farm building cattle grazing changing to the pigs in their sty being fed and running about. Two wild ducks on a pond, the wind blowing the leaves on a tree overhanging the water. In another field an orchard and a herd of cattle and two calves’ while in a second sheep and lambs with a hare or rabbit racing across the grass.