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Title: THEY made THE LAND

Reference number: 1063

Date: 1938

Director: d. Mary Field

Sponsor: Films of Scotland

Production company: GB Instructional

Sound: sound

Original format: 35mm

Colour: bw

Fiction: non-fiction

Running time: 19.41 mins

Description: The struggle to live from the land and the work of the various departments of agricultural research and animal breeding.

One of a group of seven documentaries made for the 1938 Empire Exhibition, under the supervision of John Grierson.

See also SCOTLAND FOR FITNESS ref. 0231, FACE OF SCOTLAND ref. 0034, SEA FOOD ref. 1060, SPORT IN SCOTLAND ref. 0314, THE CHILDREN’S STORY ref. 1059, WEALTH OF A NATION ref. 1062.

Credits: ph. George Stevens
comm. s. E.V.H. Emmett

Shotlist: credits (.57) gvs farm, cornfields, landscape, etc (1.39) old wooden foot plough in use (1.58) man carries wooden plough re-inforced with iron plates out of croft and lays it on ground (2.17) oxen pull wooden plough through field (2.33) sheep on hillside (2.55) cattle by loch shore (3.03) stone-built byre and outhouses. Two farmers help a cow weakened by winter starvation out into yard (3.35) woman carries creel full of manure out to field. c/u of woman and of farm worker. Pan round hillsides (4.27) Border post "England-Scotland" (4.36) 1707 Act of Union parchment (4.51) iron plough. Sack full of seeds. Farmer breaks up soil with spade, removes turf and fills drainage ditch with sods (5.47) farmer packs twigs and branches at bottom of drainage ditch, also stones (6.20) farmer lays tiles at bottom of ditch (6.28) gvs men breaking up soil, man cutting peat, carried by cart to stacks (7.21) l/s of peat stacks, c/u peat cutting (7.38) horse and ox together pull iron plough (8.07) drystane dyker at work. shots of dykes and pan across fields (8.33) farm buildings, haystacks weighed down with stones (9.06) sand dunes, farm with sand drifting around (9.37) forests and trees (9.56) shepherd and landscape (10.21) cones are gathered from pine trees, saplings are dug out of nursery beds, put into sacks and carried by ponies up hillside. Men plant saplings (11.09) men plant young trees amongst brushwood on sand dunes. shots of hills covered with young trees (11.40) horses and poultry in farm yard (11.57) a sheep's skin is treated with tar and butter mixture (12.30) haystacks, farm buildings, reaping machine. Clydesdale horse draws iron plough. Shots of the furrows (12.25) bogs, rocky ground, horse and cart, youngster lays manure (13.49) turnip and potato field, grain fields (14.15) cattle feeding at trough. Horse and cart passing Titterton farm, Aberdeenshire, home of Aberdeen short-horns. shots of same (14.44) ext. of farm, possibly Tilliefour, Aberdeenshire home of the Aberdeen Angus. Shots of same. Ayrshire longhorns (15.22) Ext. of Animal Diseased Research Association, Moredun Institute, and shots inside a laboratory (15.48) the Rowett laboratory (16.05) Hannah laboratory (16.27) Laboratory at the Institute of Animal Genetics. Tests conducted on eggs (16.59) Experiments at the Macaulay Institute for Soil Research, Aberdeen. shots of ditches at reclaimed peat bog near Caarnwath, Lanarkshire. Workers lay wooden drains (17.57) gvs of landscape (18.07) tree nurseries (18.18) caterpillar tractor brings up brushwood to lay on dunes (18.39) men plant coarse grass in dunes to hold shifting sands (19.03) gvs of hillsides, ruined croft, heather, peat bog, landscape, farm buildings and furrows. The End superimposed over picture (19.52)