One of our readers, Douglas Morison of West Morriston Farm, Earlston, Berwickshire, has found an old photo which caused him to ponder the changes in harvest techniques over the last 70 years.

The first picture is of three Massey Harris 21 combines harvesting a field of flat oats at West Morriston in 1946.

Douglas says: "These Massey Harris 21 Combines were imported from America during the later years of the war. As a boy I can well remember the wooden crates arriving from the USA, imported by John Rutherford and Sons of Earlston, and the excitement of them being unloaded and assembled on the farm.

"The first one to come had wooden flails. These were quickly changed to the more modern steel version which could in theory pick up the flat grain. Each combine took a twelve foot cut. Looking at the photo, you may note the awning to protect the operator from the sun, hardly necessary in Scotland. There was a driver and an operator whose job was to fill the railway sacks with grain from three chutes, two being for grain and the third for lights weed seeds etc.

"Railway sacks were hired from the local station at so many pence per week, in our case it was Earlston. It was standard practice for them to be filled with 16 stone of barley, and if wheat, it was 18 stone. The operator filled his bag, tied it with baler twine and dropped them in threes down a chute. Then three men came with a Fergusson tractor and three tonne trailer and manually loaded the bags onto the trailer from where they were carried (by one man on his back) very often up a stone stairway to the granary. I had a lovely photograph which I seem to have mislaid of one of RF Bell’s Albion lorries loaded with 10 ton of malting barley, what a sight it was!"

The second photograph is of the stairs to the granary to which some of the bags of grain were carried - gruelling work!

The third photograph is taken 70 years later and is of a 2016 Class combine with a 35 foot header cutting the same field, in this case winter barley. With a highly skilled operator, this combine will cut in excess of 2000 acres this year. The grain is offloaded into three 15 tonne trailers and is taken to the farm drier/store which has a capacity of holding 10,000 tonnes.

In 1946 one of the above Massey Harris combines could cut 15 to 20 acres per day with an output in the region of 25 to 30 tons per day, the modern Class combine, on a good day, will cut 500 tonnes.

How things change.