Forestry Memories

Majestic 8 disc stump jump plough at Harwood Dale

Majestic 8 disc stump jump plough at Harwood Dale

Date Added: 22 January 2014 Contributor: Norman Davidson Year of Photo: 1954 Picture No: 2204

Forestry Commission copyright image of Forest Research photographs courtesy of Glenn Brearley, Roslin. C2527

Side view of Shearer’s Australian ‘Majestic’ 8 disc Stump-Jump plough with drawbar on the right. General side view showing the depth control levers, discs and springs.

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Groups: Forest Research, Forestry Areas, Forestry in Action, Tractors Ploughs and Drainage Machines

5 Comments

This Majestic Stump Jump Plough was imported from Australia for cultivation work in Harwood dale Expt41 P.54, it arrived rather late for inclusion in the replicated experiment.The people responsible for the F.C. importing it were a Dr Dimbelby and Dr Rennie from Oxford university and perhaps another man had an involment Roy Lister Robinson who designed the RLR plough on the back of a Fag packet carefully filed in ploughing development at Wykeham. The first R in that ploughs name stood for Russel they were agricultural machinery engineers who made the first plough. The Oxford team had this theory that if you could get rid of the heather you could grow hardwoods on North Yorks moors sites. They established a nursery on Reasty top at Broxa and grew a range of seedlings for planting, The Majestic was supposed to provide the cultivation necessary for establishment of these Hardwood seedlings.
A huge number of wooden crates marked the arrival of the plough parts and drawings to assist in building this monster. They were taken to F.C. workshops at Dalby. I was sent to help unpack and build the monster and become familiar with the hand operated lifting gear and adjustment of the Discs. This picture shows it at its first ploughing site. The machine was good at cultivating but required the half of Britain to turn round in, so was deemed unsuitable for replicated experimental work, it did do a whole compt adjacent to expt 41.

The plough was sent to Speymouth Forest where it did vast work between Fochabers and Keith (Cairds Hill?).
The site for the planting of the hardwoods Became Broxa Expt. 100 and ploughed by the stalwart RLR plough. We had found the benefit of mixtures so the hardwood seedlings were planted 3 rows hardwood 3 rows Larch to get mulching free of charge. Comment left on 02 February 2017 at 21:40 by John Keenleyside Research Ex School Ganger Wykeham 1953-56
I have often wondered about the term " Stump-Jump plough" were they spring loaded and lifted when they met an obstacle?

The Australians were using them for a long time and pulled them behind Traction engines but I think they were mainly used for cultivating arable land. Comment left on 03 February 2017 at 09:45 by Jim Thain
The man in charge of this project was John L Zehetmayer. who was out there in all weathers
complete with Wellies, Fishermans oilskins and Sou, Wester Hat. The local Research Head Forester was John Weatherell who spent his entire working life on Cultivation and Nutrition of trees. Ron Robson was also involved with the cultivation of Harwoodale Expt 41 before being moved to Scotland and finishing up on Research in Wales. Comment left on 03 February 2017 at 20:04 by John Keenleyside Research Ex School Ganger Wykeham 1953-56
Regarding Jim Thains comment 03-02-17 The Huge coil Spring on each disc enabled it to operate to its desired depth until it met an obstacle such as a stump, the spring was compressed and the disc rode over the top of the obstacle, once over the coil spring forced the huge disc back into the soil. There were no stumps at Harwood- dale but this particular site was strewn with Ganister boulders and it jumped them in the same way as it did stumps.
Note:-
Ganister boulders were sought after in the 50.s decade, they had a value for making bricks suitable for boilers and furnaces where very high temperatures were involved.
The people interested in harvesting and selling these Ganister boulders were the Travelling people. They levered them out of the ground with crow bars and dragged them to the roadside with horses piled them up in heaps of estimated 1 ton lots then sold them on. Local worthies said they received £1 per Ton. Comment left on 05 February 2017 at 10:17 by John Keenleyside Research Ex School Ganger Wykeham 1953-56
I worked in the Queensland Forestry from 1979 to 1992 in Australia. The Queensland State Forestry used Shearer Majestic ploughs extensively in South East Queensland to establish pine plantations, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. (148000ha approx.) The stump jump mechanism used a large compression spring connected to a swing arm with the disk. As the plough moved forward encountering the stump the disk would roll over the stump compressing the spring, returning the swing arm once the disk had passed the stump. Really an early version of an accumulator. We used these ploughs in units of 2 hitched together with eight disks per unit. A third unit could be hitched with 6 disks when Ag crawlers came into being. The ploughs cultivated virgin ground in this format. When using a single unit of eight disks, they were used to pull up large mounds for the planting of pine trees. These mounds were very high. ie. up to 800mm. The mounds slowly compacted over time and once the pine harvested (30+years), there would be little left of the original mound. We used large truck tires as wheels not steel. This was because of transport and rear furrow guide wheel had to negotiate deep furrows Comment left on 07 June 2024 at 08:14 by David Barringhaus
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