Joe, I know it as an old Lincolnshire saying. A very old friend of mine always used to claim his kiss and squeeze when I gave him an apple pie made with the Bramleys from my garden. (He provided his own cheese!) He was a mine of information about old Lincolnshire Folklore, unfortunately he died bfore I accumulated enough for a book. I did manage to write a song about him though.

Sixteen miles for every acre.

(Mike and I met Charlie Coupland when we moved to Corringham in 1987. He was eighty years old and an absolute fund of stories, particularly from his days as a reluctant farm worker in villages between Thimbleby where he was born, and Gainsborough (where he died in 1989). He was a lovely man, and it was a joy to know him, if only for the last two years of his life. He had worked with horses in his early days, and remembered exactly how far he had to walk to plough each acre.)

Sixteen miles for every acre following the horse,
Now the tractor wheels are turning on their unrelenting course.

When Charlie's school days ended in nineteen twenty one,
He went to work upon the land for choices there were none.
He ploughed the fields with horses, it was the job he had to do.
Sixteen miles for every acre watching over hoof and shoe.

Sixteen miles for every acre following the horse,
Now the tractor wheels are turning on their unrelenting course.

He made a little table and bought a little chair,
A tied cottage from the maister in the village by the square.
He married Ethel Turner back in nineteen twenty five
And he ploughed the fields with horses just to keep them both alive.

Sixteen miles for every acre following the horse,
Now the tractor wheels are turning on their unrelenting course.

Charlie hated every minute of his job upon the land,
But he stuck it out for fifty years, to every task he turned his hand.
He liked every new development that made his toil less hard.
No more ploughing fields with horses, tractors in the stable yard.

Sixteen miles for every acre following the horse,
Now the tractor wheels are turning on their unrelenting course.

When his working days were ended, Charlie's garden was his pride,
To win prizes in the village show, his reputation wide.
A plate of matching beetroot or shiny apples green,
But no more ploughing fields with horses in this pleasant rural scene

Sixteen miles for every acre following the horse,
Now the tractor wheels are turning on their unrelenting course.
Sixteen miles for every acre following the horse,
Now the tractor wheels are turning on their unrelenting course.
Round and round, round and round, round and round.