MR. FELLOWS’ MECHANICAL HORSE

It has always seemed rather ridiculous to me, as an old scientist used to analytical thinking, that when in these modern times variety is so essential, food should be found—shall we say, lacking.

What has happened to it, since those good old days of horse-powered farming? Every farmer worked a horse or two and had an honest, smelly rich muckheap to prove it: he never used the phosphates and superphosphates and chemical insecticides he does today—pardon me if, as a physicist, I disparage the chemical industry—but his vegetables were twice as succulent and tasty as the string-and-cottonwool that masquerade under that name today.

Being an experimenter inveterate and liking both my garden and my food, I’ve been trying for years to produce a home-grown carrot to be worth the eating. So far I’ve not had all that much luck. The seeds didn’t take or the weather went wrong, or the chemicals—yes, I did try them once or twice—made the roots grow like wildfire so that they came out exactly like their shop-bought imitations.

So 1 turned to my last resort—good old-fashioned horsemuck. I was brought up in a time when it was almost ‘there for the taking’, so buying it seems a bit on the expensive side, but then everything has its drawbacks. At any rate the standard of the home-grown carrot improved tremendously

However, in the winter of my second successful year, I have been wondering whether I couldn’t save myself the expense of buying all that manure. It’s no astronomical cost I know, but with my physics to aid me, surely I can occupy a few spare evenings by trying to build – well, why not call it a ‘mechanical horse’? The thing is that even in winter I have the urge to create, though the garden is lying fallow; so more than once the potting shed has been the stage for my experimental perpetual-motion machines, aerosol-can disposers, and the like. I still have the scar from the failure of the disposer—but that, as they say, is another story.

Anyway, a mechanical horse shouldn’t be so dangerous. It doesn’t even have to be beautiful, just functional, and if the greenstuff does eventually go through, I may save a few bob on the side.

So the planning begins on the how and the where and the when of an internal digestion engine. It looks more complicated than Concorde when I’ve finished. When I begin the assembly, I go out hunting scrap metal all day Saturday, and then on Sunday I make whatever components I can out of Saturday’s acquisitions. While I work in the shed my wife re-convinces the neighbours that I’m mad by saying I am practising for my post in Heaven, where I will invent an entirely new species for the West Cheshire gardener’s especial delight. I ignore her wittiness, and bore a hole in the shed wall—that should be just above the compost-heap—yes...

By the middle of March, with the grass coming up, the garden is in need of a shake-up and ‘Bella’ is finished. I’ve had to make a concession to my wife by giving her (Bella) a pair of eyes, ears, a nose and a rudimentary tail; she (my wife) says she can’t take the thing seriously as a ‘horse’ unless I do.

By the end of March, with enough grass on the lawn to benefit from a perfunctory shave, I can feed Bella her first ‘meal’.

The grass-cuttings are piled outside the shed door, and the neighbours hang over the fence to watch as I press the starting-button and shovel in the raw material. It doesn’t go through, and Bella makes uncomplimentary noises.My wife comes to investigate and suggests, straight-faced, ‘too much choke’, but I preserve my calm dignity and regulate the throat aperture; with a gurgle the process begins. Ten minutes elapse in unproductive silence, and the neighbours drift back their digging; then appreciative rumblings rise from Bella’s metal intestines, and I know all is well.

My wife pats Bella’s sealed flank gingerly, and retires to supervise from the kitchen. I stand triumphant in the doorway for a while, smile at the neighbours and check all the gauges for their benefit, and then with my shovel on my shoulder, I step out into the sunshine to prepare the ground for my next crop of carrots.

And so all goes swimmingly for a good while. Bella produces more than I need so there is enough for the neighbours to satisfy their curiosity about her magic properties; the sturdiness of the young carrots under their cloches is really remarkable, and my wife says I’m acting as proud as if Bella had foaled, and is it worth it just for a decent carrot or two with the Sunday joint?

And then, just as all our gardens are in need of something to perk them up and the neighbours are really very interested indeed, Bella goes on a work-to-rule. Well, I think nothing of it, top up the constituent elements in all the little tanks until the gauges register normal again, and all goes swimmingly for another  week. Then, she goes on strike. Completely stopped. Conked, a goner.

I scratch my head and press the starter again, expecting the  usual rumblings of her digestive system, but she won’t budge. Not a twitter do I get from her. So the only answer is to unseal those airtight flanks, and try a repair job from inside. I carefully and methodically hold the side in place while I unscrew the nuts.

I break the seal and the whole shed is swamped, inundated, flooded, and as I get out from under and head for the nearest dry land I begin to realise why Bella is on strike. She is flooded with milk.

I might add, as an afterthought, that —with the addition to the ‘family’ of Bellarina—we are now doing a roaring trade in the dairy business.