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Welcome to our blog, Menfranco general blog
and this post, my farm life chapter
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My farm life chapter
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My farm life chapter
Dear readers, this post
is the continuation of our last post, farm life can be very hard, and it is a
chapter of my farm life experience and views, so, here again I am going to
lament about my early childhood life in the farm, which has been one of those
facts of life, that to most of us could happen during our life, so, whatever I
am telling you here is the story of my life and nothing else. Now we can also
say, that no matter how negative a story could be, and there are plenty of
negative in my life story, there must be also some positive things that would
happen, and those experiences could be used from us later in life, when we can;
therefore, let me tell you this other chapter of my life story, the way that I
have lived it, and how I see it now.
I believe that to
give you a better picture overall, of what life was like in the farms of my
native town of Genzano di Lucania, when I was young, I need also to tell you
about many other things as well, and the town itself, then the ways of how
people used to live in those times, what was happening at the time when I was
young. So, let me talk about the town and the population first.
From my memory, I
believe that the town of Genzano di Lucania, early in the twentieth century had
reached a population of about 7,000 inhabitants, in the forties when I was
young the population had grown to about 8,000 and reached 8,389 in 1951
inhabitants, and this is the highest number of people on record that I know of.
Even though some people believe that there were near 10,000 people living in
Genzano, but I am not sure about that.
Anyhow, today the
number of people that used to live in Genzano does not matter anymore, as we
don’t attach much importance to this issue. However, let us tell you about it;
in the seventies, it had shrunk to only 5,500 inhabitants or there about. The
reasons for this population shrinkage, it was because lots of people had to
emigrate somewhere in those times. The reasons why they had to emigrate will be
fully understood, when I explain what happened to the rural community of this
town including myself. Today while I am writing this article the first time,
the town of Genzano has 6200 inhabitants or there about.
My native town of
Genzano is known as Genzano di Lucania to distinguish it from another Italian
town Genzano di Roma. Anyhow this Genzano di Lucania these days has a territory
of about 21,000 Hectares of land, if I remember right, and about 80% of this
land is arable land, and it is mostly used to grow wheat, especially durum
wheat; the rest of the land is used to grow grapes vines or olive trees and
other farm produce, and there are also reserves or grazing land; as anyone can
see from what I have said here, this town owes its wealth to the rural
community that produces wheat, because this town is well known to produce lots
of very high quality durum wheat, which the mills that make pasta rush to buy
it, when it’s harvest time. Now even if the mills rush to buy this durum wheat,
the price of wheat is not high, so, the farmers make only enough money to keep
going and one should think that it takes one year to produce and harvest a crop
of wheat, so, it is not that good for the farmers; there are also other things
that must be taken into consideration, as I will continue to explain while I am
writing my life story.
Anyhow, as I have
already mentioned above, there are lots of other produce from the farms,
because we used to have mixed farming, but these products are used locally, and
if some of them are sold out of the town, they are not a great deal to make any
difference, to how wealthy this town is, and if wealth may make much difference.
But let us see, how everything was set up then, because, this may make some
difference, to see if it is good or not that good to be there.
At the time when I
was young, there were lots of small farms in Genzano, and although the most
important and the largest crop that brought in the money was durum wheat, in
reality they had to practice mixed farming for their own needs, this practice
was a must to do, but it would cut down on the amount of land that would
produce durum wheat, anyhow, I will try to explain how the farms were run at
those times when I was young, in our next post, how the farms were run then.
See you soon.
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Menfranco general blog
My farm life chapter
IS TO BE CONTINUED
Next time with, how the farms were run at those times
Menfranco general blog
My farm life chapter
IS TO BE CONTINUED
Next time with, how the farms were run at those times
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Some personal and religious links:
Some personal and religious links:
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