Wheat farming the modern way
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36, Farming today compared to the old ways
Wheat farming the modern way
Dear readers, we
would like to talk about, farming today compared to the old ways, because in my
life story that I am writing here, 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 that we were before. But let us see how I can describe that here and then
publishing it in Hub Pages. Anyhow, while I am writing my life story and this
article, I mentally compare the ways of life of today to the ways of life in
the past when I was young; for this reason, I have become aware that there is a
great difference in many ways; in fact, the difference is so great that it is
worth writing an entire article to explain my personal point of view.
Anyhow, first of
all, let us acknowledge that this modern wheat farming in Australia and in many
other parts of the world as well, it has been able to slash the present cost of
living a lot to say the least; today modern farming thanks to the many new
farming machine available to the farmers, and also the many new fertilises
available to them, farmers are able to produce wheat and other produce a lot
cheaper than in the past, so, food for most of us people has become a lot
cheaper, therefore we are better off today in many ways.
In this article we
would like to 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, as you will become aware by the time you finish
reading this article.
This difference
that we are talking about would apply to the farmers and the general public as
well, because today it affects both of them in a beneficial way. So there is a
lot to be said about this great difference in cost and also hardship or
easiness and it all has happened during my lifetime, so, there are good reasons to 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 some of the reasons why this has happened and also talk
about the farming life that we used to live, at the same time, perhaps just for
the sake of seeing where we have come from 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, just to inform the public a bit more, 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
all this could be said that it is due to the industrial revolution that has started
a long time ago and finally last century has reached also the farming
communities improving it a lot. 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 anyhow, so let us talk about some of these machines.
We could say that
the most important machine in the farms is the tractor, as this machine could
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, and
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 would be one of
the main ingredients to make foods for us to eat and we require lots of it.
Of course if we
want to talk about farming in general there is more to say than just wheat
farming, because there are many other things that the bloke on the land would
produce, see this link here-under how Wikipedia explains farming.
Dear readers, now
that we have mentioned about some of these farmer’s machinery let us continue
to talk about wheat farming and the great benefit that we get from it; we
should be really happy about what is happening here because it is a good thing
for all of us, so, today while we are writing this article, we would like to
point out that there is a great difference in the ways of living and definitely
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 machinery that the industrial revolution has been able to make 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 let me
explain this to you, today here in Australia there are 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 often wonder and we do not know how it could 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 could also 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. Here I have to 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 just to feed themselves, as we
will explain later before we finish writing this article.
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 just for
comparison 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 would receive about 700
dollars per fortnight, which would be about 50 dollars per day, they could very
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 leave
behind this affordability of food today and 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 and therefore
they were a lot more expensive, they were so because the way of producing them
was different, in order to show you what we mean, hereunder we are going to
describe how wheat farming was done at the time when I was young and also 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, to start with let me describe how farming was done then, in this
following sub-article, farming the old ways, so that we could have a better
understanding of the whole issue and be able to compare the past with the
present way of farming.
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Farming the old way
Dear readers in
order to compare and explain how farming was done at the time when I was young,
what we are going to write hereunder is the way of farm life that was going on
in those times; we know already that things have changed for the better since
then, as we have already written above, 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 some of them like 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, so let me tell you how life was in the farms of
southern Italy in the early fifties and earlier.
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 would be really working hard and working 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 in
order to go into the fields at daybreak.
At that time of the
year in the morning it would be 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 very 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, in this hub, in a sub article we
describe what we did after sowing our wheat and other cereals, and what we did
during the winter time.
Anyhow, now that we
have said what we did in the farms at sowing time, 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 labour that they have done during
the year, so there is no time to be wasted at harvest time, therefore this was and
still is the most hectic time of the year for all the farmers, and it is a very
worrying time too for the farmers as well, you see if something goes wrong all
their work goes down the drain for the whole year, so to speak. Here we are
talking about mostly how things were run in the farms when I was young.
Now let us say a
few things about today farming, especially about wheat farming, because wheat
is one of the main important produce that we need from farming, as we have
already said at the beginning of this hub. With wheat we make bread and pasta
and other bakery products, therefore it is perhaps 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.
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
labour 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 at this time of the year 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 on 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
trashing 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 thunder storms at this time of the year,
since anyone of these happenings can destroy the whole crop, and a whole year
of hard work could go up in smoke. So, we are all working hard, and at the same
time we are praying God and waiting for the trashing machine to come and finish
our harvest.
When some famer did
not have a lot of wheat to trash, they could use a place in common with other
farmers, so that, the trashing machine would not have to be set several times.
The trashing machine that were around and we would hire together with other
farmers came with a large crew, because it was a much larger machine than the
one shown in this hub, it had a crew of about twenty people, it was a very
interesting time when we were trashing our own wheat, oats, barley, etc.
Because we were anxious to see how much wheat and other product we had made.
Now there were many
other things that I would be able to tell you, like how the crew of this huge
trashing machine works, but I better not just to make it short; but here I would
like to say that when one goes through these life experiences in the farm one
knows that it is really hard life farming, but since this is the only way to
grow these food things to feed ourselves, we the farmers keep working in our
farms to feed the rest of the community.
So, we the farmers
feel that it would be right if the rest of the community would appreciate our
efforts, and they should be thanking us for all the hard work that we have
done, after all, we were providing all those things that are necessary to makes
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. All this is just because we are farm people, but we did our part
of hard work for our own benefit and also for the benefit of the entire town
community. So, we the would be young farmers felt hurt to say the least.
This is how life
was then in the small farms of Southern Italy. Now this town people attitude as
I have said above, plus some very lean years when we hardly could survive and
also because we had only a very small farm and it would have been hard to
expand was one of the reasons why I migrated to Australia. But anyhow let us
continue and describe how harvesting was done the very old way, so that we
could compare it to today’s living.
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Harvesting the very old way
Now, before we come
to a close, 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 also 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, and it was very helpful; but there were people that had some very
small holdings and we had one of these ourselves, it was in a place, where it
was hard to go with the harvester that we had, so we had to use the old ways of
harvesting our wheat for that small wheat field, because that was the only way
to do it for one reason or another.
So, let me describe
how harvesting was done in those old bygone days; at harvesting time strange as
it may seem today, one 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 just to compare those very 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 of those
time, because it was not possible to go there, we would then hire four people
and form a gang that could harvest one acre in one day and collect it in hips
that would be later on 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, it was the only way because the fields did not
produce as much as they do today, because they could not be cultivated as good
as we do today with our modern machines. You see today we have the tractor to
cultivate the fields and definitely it does a better job that the horse drawn
plough, we have also many types of fertilizer to help us grow more wheat, but
let us go back to talk about old harvesting times.
Wheat harvesting and trashing the very old time
Now I suppose I
have to say briefly how the older generations before my times used to thresh
their harvests, in order to collect all their produce. Now, let us suppose that
it was only 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
trashing 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, chick peas,
linseed, and other farm produce that were not meant to go through the wheat
trashing machine. When we were doing this procedure of trashing with 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 would be able to compare the great difference.
In order to do
this, first of all we needed to prepare a piece of ground that is very solid
and smooth, this could 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. Of course there was a lot more to say,
but let us make it short otherwise it would become too boring.
Now, once the
threshing was done we has 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 anyhow it
needed to be done in those days, because 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.
I hope I have been
able to write something that really sets up the great difference of the ways of
life that we were living then and the ways of life that we are living now, for
this I want you to compare and judge for yourself how much better off we are
today.
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 trash 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 as you can
see this is just another story of my life, which I am telling in Hub-Pages, and
I am posting some links of the other stories here under, if you like to read them?
Somehow I believe
that I have written several articles about my young farm life, so, our next
article will be about the town that I have come from, Genzano di Lucania. See
you then.
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