Step cutter on single furrow ploughing
Forestry Commission copyright image of Forest Research photographs courtesy of Glenn Brearley, Roslin. CN166
Photographs by GGM Taylor in 1968 of a trial with the Stinson step cutter on the sock of a single furrow plough working somewhere in South Scotland. Assume that Stinson is the name of the person with the original idea. As with the trial photographed in Craik forest two years previously, the step cutter is only partially working in some sections. Unfortunately the actual cutter is not show in this sequence. However even a partial cut did save the tree planter quite a bit of work as he had a least one less spade cut to create a suitable step to plant the tree into. With no step cutter the planter had with great effort to make three cuts possibly up to six inched deep into the peat and lever out the peat block before inserting the plant via a single notch into the recess created. This did give the small tree some shelter but it also more critically brought the roots of the tree closer to the rotting vegetation layer under the plough furrow. In some forests no step cutting was done at all.
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Groups: Forest Research, Forestry Areas, Forestry in Action, Tractors Ploughs and Drainage Machines