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Welcome to our article,
Dear readers, this post will be a long post, so, I cannot upload the entire original article and most of the photos, if you want to see that click on the Hub Pages link, Farming today compared to the old way.
Anyhow, here we want to talk about farming today compared to the old ways, because I can mentally see the great difference that it has made in our standard of living. So, I believe that today we are better off than we were before; but let me see how I can describe this difference. Anyhow, I am writing about my life story, so, I mentally compare the ways of life of today to the ways of life in the past when I was young.
Anyhow, we must
acknowledge that this modern wheat farming in Australia, and in other parts of
the world, it has slashed the present cost of living a lot, and this helps us
to live a better life. We believe that this has happened because of the new
farming machines available to the farmers, and the fertilizes available to them;
so, farmers are able to produce wheat and other produce a lot cheaper than in the
past, so, food has become cheaper, therefore, we are better off today in many
ways.
In this article, we
invite our readers to compare how different farming and farming life was at the
time when I was young in the fifties, and also, how hard was life then because
most of us had to work hard just to earn enough to feed ourselves and our
families.
This difference that we are talking about applies to the farmers and the general public as well, because today it affects us in a beneficial way. So, there is a lot to be said about this great difference in cost and hardship, and this has happened during my lifetime. So, I believe that our standard of living has improved a lot, at least in the sense of being able to feed ourselves with wheat and other farm products, because the cost of farm products are more affordable today than in the past; so, let us compare the cost of living, and how much we have improved since then.
Today we often
wonder how easy it is to grow and harvest wheat, at least it seems so when we
look at a video that shows harvest time in the wheat farms, we see a few
harvester machines in a field collect the wheat in no time at all, and because
of this speed of these wonderful combine harvester machine food is a lot
cheaper today than it used to be; of course these machines are only part of the
machinery that helps the farmers produce the wheat, because there are many more
machines required. So, let us talk about some other machinery that the farmers
require.
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Some farmers' machinery.
Now let us talk about the farmer’s machinery and the benefit that has come from them; of course, this is due to the industrial revolution that has started a long time ago. It seems to me that the farming sector has been one of the last communities that has benefited from the industrial revolution, anyhow, that doesn’t matter how it has worked out, because today we are better off, so, let us talk about these machines.
We can say that the
most important machine in the farms is the tractor, as this machine can be used
in all sorts of farming, in wheat farming the tractor is followed by the
harvester machine and other devices to till the soil and to sow the seeds, and
all these machines put together make farming a lot easier today, therefore,
wheat can be produced a lot cheaper, this of course helps keep the price of
bread and other wheat made products down, since wheat is the main food elements
required in the western world to prepare food, therefore, this new way of
farming helps a great deal just about everybody, since wheat is one of the main
ingredients to make foods for us to eat, and we require lots of it.
Of course, there is more to say than just wheat farming,
because there are many other things that the bloke on the land can produce, see
this link here-under how Wikipedia explains farming.
Agriculture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear readers, now
that we have talked about these farmer’s machines, let us talk about wheat
farming and the great benefit that we get from it; we must be happy about what
is happening because it is a good thing for all of us; so, we want to point out
that there is a great difference in the ways of living, and we are a lot better
off today than we were when I was young, so, let us compare some of the
benefits that we have achieved, since today the farmers can use these farm
machines that the industrial revolution has made for us.
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Let us compare these benefits.
Now, let us compare
the great difference between today and the past for comparison sake. When I wrote this article for the first time, in Australia there were a few places that a 600g loaf of bread costs you
just one dollar, we know that this bread is sold at a very special price from
these supermarket, in order to get the customers to the shop, but we wonder and
we do not know how it can be done so cheap but they do it anyhow, this very low
price of bread is possible only because the farmer can produce the wheat cheap
for a start.
Then, because the wheat is cheap the price of bread can be cheap, the supermarkets make it even cheaper to attract customers, because the supermarkets have a price war to attract customers on bread and also on milk, so, we can buy a loaf of bread for one dollar and we can buy a two litre bottled milk for two dollars, that works out at one dollar per litre, again how they can do it I do not know, but they do it anyhow; so, there is plenty of cheap wholesome food around for us to enjoy, thanks to the farmers and the supermarkets. (We hope that this will last for a long time, but I have my doubts). Anyhow, I must point out that in the past, the price of bread and milk was a lot dear, in fact there have been times, when people were struggling to feed themselves.
But even though
bread and milk is cheap beyond compare, there are people that still complain
about the cost of living today, I know that what I am talking about here are
only a few items and a lot more are needed to live well. But for comparison’s
sake let us show you how easily we can afford to buy bread and milk to day, you
see today, while I am writing this article for the first time, most people on
the government old age pension in Australia receive about 700 dollars per
fortnight, which would be about 50 dollars per day, they can easily afford to
buy bread and milk and other food items.
Now that we have said how easy it is to buy bread and other staple food today, let us see how things were done in the past. You see, when I was young things were a lot harder than today, for sure we could not buy bread and milk as easy as we buy them today, because to produce these things took a lot more physical work than today, therefore, they were more expensive, they were so because the way of producing them was different, in order to show you what we mean, we are going to describe how wheat farming was done at the time when I was young, and how hard it was for some people just to have something to eat, even if it was just a piece of bread and butter, bread and milk, or bread and tomatoes or other basic things that one could find in the fields if you were in the farms. Anyhow, let us compare the past with the present way of farming.
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Farming the old way.
Dear readers, to compare how farming was at the time when I was young, we will write about the way of farm life of those times; we know that things have changed for the better since then, because of the tractor and new farming machinery that have come out since then, all due to the industrial revolution or progress; which we have experienced in the last hundred years or so, but when I was young there were a lot less advanced farming machine that could make farming easy, of course, the tractors were already there, but they were very expensive to buy for most of the small farmers, so, we had to do most things the old ways. Now let me tell you how life was in the farms of southern Italy in the early fifties.
It is a well-known
fact that in those times and even now, there are two times during the year,
when in the farms everybody is working hard and very long hours; one of
this was sowing time and the other is harvest time, let us start with sowing
times. When I was young the working day at sowing time would start two hours
before dawn, because we had to make the horses, mules and other animals ready
for working in the fields, we had to feed them and water them as well, it had
to be done in such a way that everything should be made ready to go into the
fields at daybreak.
At that time of the
year in the morning it was very cold and there are lots of frosty days, so, in
the morning the outside temperature could be around zero or below, it is very
hard then to harness the horses to the plough as everything one touches is so
cold; but then when one gets going it is not so bad, because walking in the
fields holding the plough in one hand and guiding the horses with the other
hand is hard work and it makes one warm. This type of hard work at sowing
time goes on for about a month if the weather is good and perhaps it could be
longer than a month. When the sowing is done then everything slows down again,
but we had still to look after the farms’ animals and do other farming chores;
see this article My farm life continues, where we describe what we did after
sowing, and what we did during the winter time.
Now let us talk about harvest time, since this is the busiest time in the farms, because harvest time is when the farmers collect the fruits of their hard labor, so, there is no time to be wasted at harvest time, therefore, this was and is the most hectic time of the year for all the farmers, and it is a very worrying time too for the farmers, you see if something goes wrong all their work goes down the drain for the whole year, so to speak.
Now let us say a
few things about today farming, especially about wheat farming, because wheat
is one of the most important produces that we need from farming. With wheat we make bread and
pasta and other bakery products, therefore, it is the most important farm
produce that we use. So, let us compare what is changed in wheat farming since
I was young:
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Wheat harvest in the fifties.
The following
description is the way of wheat harvest time in the fifties. When I was young
we had already a horse drawn harvester that was helping us, this early
harvester was able to cut the wheat plants and tie them in bundles, so, we were
already halfway down the track of progress, as this machine saved us a lot of
work, because we did not have to harvest by hand, which is a very labor
intensive job, as we are going to describe later in this article. Anyhow, at
this time of the year everybody in the farm works hard and for very long hours,
it is very hot and everything is very dry. We get up very early in the morning,
we get the horses ready for working by feeding them and watering them, then we
harness the horses and set them to pull the harvester, and off we go in the
fields for another day of hard work, if everything goes well, we might be able
to go over a ten-acre field just in one day with this harvester. The harvester
needs two people to get it working, one drives the horses and another regulate
the harvester, the harvester goes around the field and leaves these bundles of
wheat or other cereal, whatever has been sown in the field. Now these bundles
of wheat will be collected in hips around the field from other people as soon as
possible, the hips of these bundles of wheat are made is such a way that if it
rains the rain would run off easily, these hips of wheat will be collected
later when we finish with the harvester, perhaps in a week or two, then we will
go back to the fields with a cart to take everything on a special plot near the
farmhouse, where the threshing machine will be hired and set.
When we collect and
cart everything to the farm house, we work very long days, we get up before 4
am, but we have a break of two or three hours at lunchtime because it is too
hot to do anything, then we go back to work and between real work and looking
after the animals we finish at dusk around 8 pm, after that we only have to
feed the horses: this sort of work goes on for more than a month and sometimes
up to two months, with no breaks at all seven days a week. Everybody in the
farm works to their maximum and they are very tired, they are also very worried
about the possible fire hazard, and also of any thunderstorms at this time of
the year, since anyone of these happenings can destroy the whole crop, and a
whole year of hard work can go up in smoke. So, we are all working hard, and at
the same time we are praying God and waiting for the threshing machine to come
and finish our harvest.
When some famer did not have a lot of wheat to thresh, they could use a place in common with other farmers, so that, the threshing machine would not have to be set several times. The threshing machine that were around and we would hire together with other farmers came with a large crew, because it was a very large machine, it had a crew of about twenty people, it was a very interesting time when we were threshing our own wheat, oats, barley, etc. Because we were anxious to see how much wheat and other product we had made.
Anyhow, here I want to say that when one goes through these life experiences in
the farm, one knows that farming life is hard; but since this is the only way
to grow food to feed ourselves, we the farmers keep working in our farms to
feed ourselves and the rest of the community.
So, we the farmers feel that it would be right if the rest of the community appreciates our efforts, so, they should be thanking us for all the hard work that we have done, after all, we are providing all those things that are necessary to make food for the rest of the community; but it does not happen that way, because even when we are working our guts out, and while we are doing that we are becoming dull, the rest of the community does not care and they label us as dull people; their attitude hurts us very much and we believe that we don’t deserve that; just because we are farm people, but we have done our part of hard work for our own benefit and for the benefit of the entire community. So, we the farmers feel hurt to say the least.
Anyhow, this town people attitude as I have said above, plus some very lean years when we hardly could survive, and because we had only a small farm and it would have been hard to expand was one of the reasons why I left farming and migrated to Australia. But anyhow let us continue to describe how harvesting was done the very old way, so, that we can compare it to today’s living.
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Harvesting the very old way.
Now, because we want to compare the very old ways of farming with today farming, we need to say how harvesting wheat was done before my times; here we need to say that I have witnessed the last part of this old practice when I was young. You see, when I was young we were already using a horse drawn harvester; but there were people that had some small holdings and we had one of these ourselves, it was in a place, where it was hard to go with the harvester, so, we had to use the old ways for harvesting our wheat for that small wheat field, because that was the only way.
So, let me describe
how harvesting was done in those old bygone days; at harvesting time strange as
it may seem today, we could hire some specialized people that were good at
using the sickle, these people usually went from town to town to do this
seasonal harvesting job; we need also to explain that in Southern Italy because
the terrain has different altitude the wheat reaches maturity at different
times, this was helping these seasonal workers to have a longer span of work,
now to compare those hard times with today times, I have to tell you
that these workers were sleeping anywhere they could on a sack filled up with
straws under a shelter if they could find one, as they could not afford
anything else. In the morning they would get up early and wait in the town
square hoping that somebody would hire them for the day.
Now let us say that
we had a small plot about one acre and we could not use the harvester, because
it was not possible to go there, we would hire four people and form a gang that
could harvest one acre in one day and collect it in hips, that later would be
taken on a cart to the farm house to be threshed one way or another.
In the old times
anything that had grown in the field was collected, it needed to be collected
for the people to survive, because the fields did not produce as much as they
do today, because they could not be cultivated with our modern machines. You
see, today we have the tractor to cultivate the fields and it does a better job
than the horse drawn plough, we have many types of fertilizer to help us grow
more wheat but let us go back to talk about very old harvesting times.
Wheat harvesting and threshing the very old time.
Now I must say
briefly how the older generations before my times used to thresh their
harvests, to collect their produce. Now, let us suppose that it was a few
bundles of wheat to be threshed one could even extract the wheat by hitting
them with a stick, but let us say that we had a cartful, or many cartsful for
that matter, then we had to use a different method, which is the way that most
farm used in the very old times for centuries, before the threshing machine was
invented, so, let me tell you how it was done.
I happen to know
this procedure, because in the farms when I was young, we were still using this
method with smaller crops, most likely broad beans, lentils, chickpeas,
linseed, and other farm produce that were not meant to go through the wheat
threshing machine. When we were doing this procedure of threshing these minor
crops, the elder would always be telling us that this was the way that they
used to collect their wheat as well and usually it took them a few months to
collect all the season produce. So, now let me describe this to you, so that we
can compare the difference.
In order to do this old threshing, first of all we needed to prepare a piece of ground that is very solid and smooth, this can be achieved by stripping the old dry grass on a piece of land that had a large clay content, then wet it with a little bit of water to make it compact; once that was ready we would place our wheat or whatever was to be threshed and collected on this clean ground, then we would get our horses mule and donkeys whatever animals were available and drive them around and around until everything was threshed.
Now, once the
threshing was done we had to separate the produce from the straw and any other
foreign matter, this was achieved by removing the straws from the top layer
making sure that no produce was left with the straws, at the same time we would
collect the bottom layer in a hip, once that was done we would have to clean
that produce by using the wind, to take away the finer parts that were still
mixed with the wheat or whatever it was, and there were many other things that
we could use to get this wheat clean, by the end of the day we could have
collected two or three hundred kilograms of produce, and when we did that we
thought that we had done well for a day work.
In the very ancient
times was even worse, see what they were using in the Medieval Times, here is a
link to check out some ancient farm tools including the Flail and Winnowing
Basket used to collect and clean wheat.
I hope that this gives the modern reader a view of how thing were done in the old times, so, I do not want to say much more about how all this threshing and cleaning of the wheat was done, because even writing about it is boring today. But then that was the only way to collect our wheat to make bread and other things to eat. Now, my dear reader’s do you see how hard was then even to collect wheat for ourselves, so that we could make bread and other cereal product.
So to the young people
who think that today life is hard, let me describe to you what I have witnessed
when I was young, because then life really was harder than today, you see those
days everybody had to find how to earn enough to feed themselves there were no
handover from the government. So, the very poor people of those days were
trying to collect anything they could to feed themselves, as I have witnessed
these things myself, so, let me describe this to you:
You see, at harvest time this is what I have witnessed, I have seen old and poor people mainly old ladies go around the fields and pick up any ear of wheat that was left behind in the fields, one ear of wheat here and another ear wheat there until they had the strength to go around, they did this each day until harvest time was over and there was nothing else to collect; and I tell you what these poor people were happy if in the end they had collected enough ears of wheat that they could thresh and clean themselves, perhaps they could have collected enough to make 50 to 100 kilos of wheat during harvest time and they were happy because, they could make bread from this wheat and not go hungry for a few months. Now I hope that you can see what I mean when I say that the youths of today don’t know anything about hard times.
Anyhow, I hope that
today this abundance of cheap food lasts for a long time, because things can
change in the future. Today the climatic change is the worrying part, because
we don’t know how much it is going to affect the farms and our lives.
I believe that this article is too long, so, see you in our next article, Genzano di Lucania. the town that I have come from. See you then.
To see more click on this link, Farming today compared to the old way
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