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“Excuse me, Mr P,” said Mrs P, with very pronounced northern intonation, “Why are you reading a book in the middle of the working day?” Max had given me John Connell’s The Cow Book for Father’s Day and I was having an extended lunch break – after the pot noodle – reading in the sunny kitchen window as Mrs P returned from work.
“Research,” I said, “research for the Irish Farmers Journal and I’ll tell you something, those suckler and sheep farmers work awful hard. Connell’s wrecked – he’s been up every night for the last four months.”
It’s true. John Connell paints a picture of unrelenting work and it’s enough to put anyone off that sort of farming. Maybe that’s why Max gave me the book, as I’ve occasionally expressed an interest in having a few suckler cows again. A few pedigree Herefords like my grandfather had. John Canty has a herd of them across the hedge which I greatly admire.
But Connell’s bestselling and brutally honest book is much more than a beginner’s guide to sheep and sucklers. It’s about his return to the family farm and his difficult working relationship with his father. Connell is a kind, caring, sensitive soul and life with his father is not always harmonious.
I suspect most farming father/son relationships are never particularly easy. John Connell is the same age as Max and his father is roughly the same age as me, but I think I’d be much easier to get on with. Though Max might have a very different view.
Besides Max is not farming full-time with me, which I think is better for us both, at least for now. I’ll mellow and he’ll mature in the intervening years. Though if he’s like me he’ll never really mature.
As fathers, we unreasonably expect our farming son to know all we think we know but without the experience. We expect too much too soon and are reluctant to relinquish control.
But this is changing. Modern machine technology is making dinosaurs out of fellows like me – just wait till I start messing with auto-steer in the autumn. There’ll be some cursing then and Max will have to take time off from Boortmalt to hold my hand.
ITLUS
And now to another book which is about tillage farming over the past 50 years. The Irish Tillage and Land Use Society (ITLUS) is 50 years old this year. I haven’t quite been a member for 50 years but I have for 30 and yes, unlike me, Max is already a council member. To celebrate its 50th, the annual summer field trip this year was to the farm of John Brophy, whose father Stan was the first president, and then on to this year’s, Hugh McDonnell.
Hugh McDonnell’s farm is located close to Bagenalstown, Co Carlow, and a more attractive looking and well-run farm you’d be hard pressed to find. It is set on lovely rolling countryside with a superb tillage soil and all beautifully cared for.
Tullow is a tillage farming heartland and the home of the late Stan Brophy, who was a very industrious and pioneering farmer. Today his son John carries on that tradition with both a dairy herd and large tillage enterprise.
To celebrate 50 years of ITLUS, an attractive and interesting hardback book has been published which provides insight into the evolution of Irish tillage farming. I particularly enjoyed Michael McBennett’s article about his farming experiences over the decades.
If you’re young and interested in the science behind modern tillage farming then ITLUS is a good place to start. It’ll be a much better way to learn than listening to your auld lad.
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