Spielberg given a lesson in realistic ploughing

FOLLOWING questions about its historical accuracy, Stephen Spielberg’s film War Horse is now under fire for agricultural inexactitude.

Farmer Guy Watson, founder of the Riverford Organics growing and home delivery business, was not impressed with the film and has been explaining why in his latest newsletter to customers, sent out with all his boxes of produce.

He says: “Spielberg’s World War One adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s tale of horse heroics seems to have left half the nation shedding buckets of tears and the other half reaching for the bucket.

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“My son and I were in the latter camp but despite any shred of agricultural realism, I found myself shedding a tear at the scene where the farm will be lost unless that horse can plough a rough Dartmoor field by dawn.

“Ploughing that stony virgin field with a team of sturdy cobs would have been improbable; with a puny thoroughbred it was ludicrous. But there is something about the age-old turning of sods that gets to me, however cheesy the plot.

“An acre (about the size of a smallish football pitch and about the size of the field in question) was originally defined as the area one man could plough with one horse in a day. Without the rocks and with a good horse, he might have ploughed that field by dawn. But the turnips would never have grown in such a dreadful seed bed.

“And another thing, Spielberg: if you broadcast the seed, the turnips don’t come up in neat rows.

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“It was filmed on the moor above our farm in Devon and I reckon that Spielberg could have done with less cheese and come down for some sound agricultural advice instead.”

The film is based on a children’s novel by British author Michael Morpurgo which became a hit as a stage play employing brilliant puppetry.

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