AFTER writing last time about sowing grass seeds, I remembered there was another old method I don't think will be used today and that is sowing with a seed barrow.

The nearest I have ever been to one is the far end of an old barn where one was stored and I wish now I had weaved my way among various implements and had a closer look.

This means that when I try to describe it I am doing so from a glance across the length of a barn over 50 years ago, but I'll do my best.

As far as I recall the seed barrow had the usual barrow frame with, surprisingly, a slim iron wheel with a rim the thickness of your little finger.

Immediately behind and above the wheel was mounted the long wooden seed box.

I hope I come close when I say the box stretched about eight or nine feet and must have been eight or nine inches deep and perhaps six inches wide at the bottom.

It was, of course, complete with a wooden lid.

I couldn't even make a guess as to how much grass seed the box held but it must have been hard work keeping the barrow balanced while wheeling it up and down a field that had been worked up into a good tilth.

The thought occurs that the slim wheel would fairly sink into the soil.

What I am most hazy about is the mechanism that produced the drive necessary to deliver the seed.

I can only think the most likely method would be a drive from a cog on the wheel axle connected to a mechanism in the box with something like a cycle chain.

I hope it sounds reasonable.

I don't remember seeing any sort of a "marker" to follow across the field.

It may be that, with skill, you could be sure to keep the correct distance from the last wheel mark.

Perhaps you fastened a string on each end of the box, trailing perhaps a big nut or bolt, to leave a mark to follow.

Some may even set up sticks to follow, I don't know, but you may be sure whatever method was used, the chaps who sowed seed from a barrow would have a pride in their job that made it a must for them to keep the lines dead straight.

Dialect word: Gloppers meaning horse blinkers.

Thought for the day: He: "Meet me outside the Hilton at eight".

She: "The Hilton? That's a posh place!" He: Yes and it's close to where we're going too."