The Secret Land Agent

The estate's departments must learn to work together for their long-term future

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On landed estates, certainly the one I work on anyway, there is an ongoing tussle and between departments – their needs differ. The farm wants to try to make their fields and farming operations as efficient as possible, with sprayer widths and tramlines critical to reducing cultivation times and fuel use. Backing sprayers into awkward field corners is a time-consuming and frustrating affair. Meanwhile, the game department wants to have their covercrops exactly where it suits them, not minding too much if this makes it awkward for the tractor drivers so long as it provides the perfect pheasant drive or place for a partridge pen.

There is also little agreement between them on the timing of operations. The farm manager is determined to cultivate all night long if he has to, regardless of the impact that might have on roosting red-legged partridges out on the fields.

Alongside that, the forestry department spent the early winter months chomping at the bit, eager to get into the woods to start their thinning operations and timber extraction. The gamekeeper clearly defends against this chainsaw charge, desperate to keep them at bay until February.