Hello
ODK history lovers
The
Mayfield Motor Scythe was a British machine imported to
these shores in about
1949. It would be sold here for about six
years, ending in
1955.
The Mayfield – a horticultural sickle bar mower – was just one of
the many sickle mower brands (mostly from Britain) that entered
the Australian market post WWII.
They were marketed to the ‘small farmer’ – capitalising on the great
increase in smaller acreages springing up across Australia at this time.
This was before the ‘rotary revolution’ that would take hold in the
domestic sphere in the mid-1950s.
In any case, the sickle-bar mower was well-established in the psyche
of farmers’ minds, and it was the obvious idea for clearing land on
small acreage ... and hay mowers had been around for over a century!
I guess the rotary was too new and suspicious to conservative minds …
The Mayfield was a quality machine and it is informative to
understand how they were marketed. Originally as a ‘motor scythe’
but these machines evolved to encompass ‘accessories’ that made
them better described as versatile ‘two-wheel’ tractors.