The traditional farming year

For ten years broadcaster Paul Heiney ran his own Suffolk farm with horse rather than tractor.

In this book Paul draws on his experience in order to describe month-by-month a farming year that our great-grandparents might have recognized.

Paul shows that in traditional farming the farmer strikes a balance with nature and gives back to the land what he takes away.

Detailing the work of the farm's key players - farmer, farmer's wife, horseman, dairyman, shepherd, labourer and farmer's boy - he considers who took centre stage at various junctures of the farming year, in a way familiar to viewers of his Victorian Farming television series.

The book includes many 1940s and 50s photographs from the archives of 'Farmer and Stockbreeder' magazine.